Kamala Harris Picks Tim Walz

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher, is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, according to multiple media outlets.

The pick comes after weeks of speculation that increasingly focused on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Harris continued to interview potential running mates through the weekend and ultimately picked Walz, who emerged as the preferred candidate of progressives.

Harris and Walz are expected to appear together at an event at Temple University in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening.

As governor, Walz took advantage of a Democratic trifecta in state government to push through a progressive policy agenda that included free breakfast and lunch for all schoolchildren. Minnesota was the fourth state to offer school lunch to all students, an early adopter of a policy that has become a growing national trend.

The budget he signed in 2023 included a major funding boost for Minnesota schools and a $1,750 per-child annual tax credit that aimed to reduce childhood poverty. Congress has refused to reinstate the pandemic-era federal child tax credit that dramatically cut childhood hunger and poverty.

Walz also signed a free college tuition program for Minnesota families earning less than $80,000 a year. The program provides last-dollar scholarships that close gaps between students’ financial aid packages and the actual cost of attendance.

Republicans have criticized Walz for increasing the size of state government and sidelining them in the legislative process. If Democrats win the White House in November, they are unlikely to face such a supportive Congress.

While speculation circled around Shapiro for weeks, the governor drew criticism in the week leading up to the announcement for his response to pro-Palestinian campus protesters and for an op-ed he wrote in college in which he wrote that peace was not possible with the Palestinians. He said that his views have evolved since. Some public education advocates also expressed concerns about his past voucher support.

Walz, a military veteran who taught high school history from 1996 to 2006, tells a story that he got his start in politics when he took some students to a rally for former Republican President George W. Bush, and they were denied entry because one of his students had a sticker for Bush’s Democratic opponent, John Kerry.

Walz served six terms in Congress representing a conservative district that went strongly for Trump in 2016. He won election as governor in 2018 and reelection in 2022, despite criticisms over his Covid response, including the length of school closures in Minnesota, and his response to the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

In recent weeks, Walz has emerged as an outspoken surrogate for Harris, gaining viral video fame for clips in which he calls former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies “weird.” He has also cast the type of policies he enacted in Minnesota as more representative of “family values” than culturally conservative positions backed by Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Walz has what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune dubbed “rumpled uncle looks.” Gun safety activist and Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg called him the “midwestern dad we need as VP.”

When one poster on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, compared Walz’s appearance unfavorably to that of the vice president by asking “how on earth are these two people the same age,” another poster responded, “Because Tim Walz taught high school. Trust me.”

Walz joined in the joke, adding: “And supervised the lunchroom for 20 years. You do not leave that job with a full head of hair. Trust me.”