Vice President Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, completing a makeover of the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket just three weeks after President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid.
“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked Governor Tim Walz to be my running mate,” Harris said in a statement. “One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep. It’s personal. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his own. We are going to build a great partnership. We start out as underdogs but I believe together, we can win this election.”
Walz, 60, is midway through his second term as governor after spending 12 years representing a rural congressional district in southern Minnesota and serving on the Agriculture and Veterans’ Affairs Committees. Minnesota is occasionally competitive, but it’s far from a swing state, having supported the Democratic nominee in every presidential election since 1972. With Walz, Harris is likely looking to unify the centrist and progressive wings of her party as she looks to stave off Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
After a weekslong process that was eventually whittled down to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Harris settled on Walz. The Minnesotan had the support of many congressional Democrats—reportedly including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—and his elevation to the ticket will satisfy a number of union leaders and progressive interest groups.
“Tim Walz doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk,” the United Auto Workers labor union posted on X. “From delivering for working-class Americans to standing with the UAW on our picket line last year, we know which side he’s on. That’s why we’re going to send @KamalaHarris and @Tim_Walz to the White House this November.”
At the same time, Walz exudes moderate sensibilities. He enlisted in the National Guard at the age of 17, and in 1999, he helped lead the Mankato West High School football team to a state championship as the team’s defensive coordinator.* He is an avid outdoorsman and does not use the modern political lexicon of liberal activists when contrasting Democratic policies with those of the GOP. Indeed, it was Walz earlier this summer who first coined the messaging, later adopted by others on the left, that Republicans are “weird.”
However, Walz’s record as governor could pose political hurdles for Harris, given her existing reputation for staunch progressivism. In 2020, Minneapolis was ground zero for the urban riots that broke out across the country in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd. And throughout Walz’s nearly six years in office, he has signed a spate of liberal priorities into law, including bills granting Minnesota driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, allowing convicted felons to vote, and expanding access to gender-transition health care services. Minnesota has also been plagued by a number of scandals related to fraud and mismanagement during Walz’s tenure as governor.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”
Reuters reported Monday that Harris had narrowed down her choice to Walz and Shapiro, the 51-year-old who was first elected as Pennsylvania’s governor in 2022 after serving as the state’s attorney general from 2017 to 2023. Pennsylvania is arguably the most important battleground state this year, and Shapiro won it by a resounding 15-point margin just two years ago. As The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio wrote yesterday, “Shapiro supports school vouchers, has tough-on-crime credentials as a former attorney general and clemency-board member, opposes tearing down monuments to colonial-era statesmen, and seems to disdain the anti-anti-Hamas crowd on campus almost as much as Republicans do.”
That relative moderation on Shapiro’s part sparked a relentless intraparty campaign against his selection in recent days, with progressive lawmakers and liberal activists laundering concerns about the Pennsylvania governor through the press. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania reportedly conveyed concerns about Shapiro’s time on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons to Harris’ campaign, and a number of stories have popped up in recent days citing a sexual harassment complaint against one of Shapiro’s closest advisers.
The biggest strike against Shapiro, however, may very well have been that he is Jewish—a detail the Trump campaign will surely highlight in the coming days and weeks. “If it’s not Josh Shapiro,” Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, told Hugh Hewitt earlier this morning, “they will have not picked Shapiro frankly out of antisemitism in their own caucus and in their own party.” Shapiro has expressed a desire to see Hamas eliminated in Gaza but has also been sharply critical of Israel’s war effort, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “destructive force for Israel” and advocating for a two-state solution.
However, Walz quickly received the seal of approval of Democratic Majority for Israel, a liberal group supportive of the Jewish state and that opposes Democratic primary candidates who are not similarly in favor of continuing U.S. aid to Jerusalem. “In the House, Gov. Walz supported a number of resolutions that helped strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance,” the group said in a statement. “As governor, he has been a steadfast supporter of the pro-Israel community in Minnesota.”
Harris is expected to appear with Walz in Philadelphia tonight to debut the new Democratic ticket. The duo will then head out on a whirlwind swing state tour leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which is set to begin on August 19.
Stay tuned for more coverage of this breaking news development in tonight’s Boiling Frogs, tomorrow’s Morning Dispatch, and tomorrow’s Dispatch Politics.
Correction, August 6, 2024: This newsletter originally identified Tim Walz as the head coach of the Mankato West High School football team. He was actually its defensive coordinator.
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