US media reported that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, choosing a champion of progressive politics and a plain-spoken speaker from America's heartland to appeal to rural and white voters. did
Walls, a 60-year-old U.S. Army National Guard veteran and former teacher, was elected to a Republican district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and served 12 years before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018.
As governor, Walls pushed a progressive agenda that includes free school meals, climate change goals, tax cuts for the middle class and increased paid leave for Minnesota workers.
Walls has long advocated for women's reproductive rights, but has also shown a conservative bent while representing a rural district in the US House, championing agricultural interests and supporting gun rights.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, adds a popular Midwestern politician whose home state reliably votes Democratic in presidential elections but is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two vital battlegrounds.
Such states are seen as crucial in deciding this year's election, and Wallis is widely seen as in touch with savvy white rural voters who have overwhelmingly voted for Republican Donald Trump, Harris' rival for the White House, in recent years. are
Harris' campaign is hoping that Walls' National Guard career, along with his successful career as a high school football coach and his father's prank videos, will woo voters who are not yet committed to a second Trump term in the White House.
Harris, 59, has been reviving his re-election hopes since becoming the Democratic nominee after Joe Biden, 81, ended his re-election bid on July 21.
Walls was relatively unknown nationally until the Harris “veepstakes” heated up, but his profile has grown since then. A popular member of Congress, he reportedly had the support of powerful former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in convincing Biden to drop out.
Harris and Walls will face Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, also a veteran of the Midwest, in the Nov. 5 election.
Walls, who sometimes rushes for Harris in camouflage baseball caps and T-shirts, has attacked Trump and Vance as “freaks,” a catchphrase that has been picked up by the Harris campaign, social media and Democratic activists.
a unicorn
In an interview in late July, Walls gave Harris' fledgling campaign a new line of attack: “These are weird people on the other side: They want to take the books with them.” “They want to be in your exam room.” Referring to the ban on books and women's fertility counseling with doctors.
Walls has also attacked Trump and Vance's claim to having middle-class credentials.
They keep talking about the middle class. A real estate robber baron and a venture capitalist trying to tell us who we are? “They don't know who we are,” Walls said in an interview with MSNBC.
That approach has struck a chord with the young voters Harris needs to reengage. David Hogg, co-founder of the gun safety group March for Our Lives, described him as a “great communicator.”
Ryan Dawkins, a political science professor at Minnesota's Carleton College, said Walls is somewhat of a unicorn — a man born in a small town in rural Nebraska who can carry Harris' message to core Democratic voters and those the party has lost. . to reach in recent years.
Dawkins praised his ability to connect with rural voters. This is the group that the Biden administration has tried to reach with infrastructure spending and other pragmatic policies, but so far has had little success in messaging.
In the 2016 election, Trump won 59 percent of rural voters. In 2020, this number increased to 65%, although Trump lost the election.
In the 2022 gubernatorial race, Walls won with 52.27 percent to his Republican challenger's 44.61 percent, although parts of rural Minnesota voted for the challenger.
While Walls has supported Democratic Party orthodoxy on issues ranging from legal abortion and same-sex marriage to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, he also has a voting record during his career in Congress. He got the middle.
According to The Almanac of American Politics, he was a staunch defender of government support for farmers and military veterans, as well as the rights of gun owners, drawing praise from the National Rifle Association.
He subsequently filed a failing grade with the NRA after supporting gun control measures in his first gubernatorial campaign.
Walz's shift from a moderate representing a single rural district in Congress to a more progressive politician as governor may have been in response to the demands of voters in big cities like the Minneapolis-St. Bridge. But that leaves him open to Republican attacks, Dawkins said in a phone interview.
“She runs the risk of reinforcing some of the worst fears people have about Kamala Harris being a liberal in San Francisco,” Dawkins said.
Walz has a counter attack ready.
“What a monster,” Walls said in an interview with CNN in July: “Kids eat and they're full, so they can learn, and women make their own health care decisions. So if they want to label me I am happy to accept this label.
As the state's top executive, Walls mandated the use of face coverings during the Covid-19 pandemic and signed legislation outlawing sexual assault. He presided over several years of budget surpluses in Minnesota en route to his 2022 re-election bid.
During that campaign, Walls secured the support of several influential labor unions, including the state AFL-CIO, firefighters, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), teachers, and others.
His tenure was marked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a black man by a white Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder. Walls appointed the state attorney general to prosecute the case, saying people “didn't believe that justice could be served.”
