Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, putting an increased focus on his life and record in public office.
Walz, 60, is a former U.S. Army National Guard member and a former teacher who has raised his profile in recent weeks as an effective advocate for Harris. He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, and was also a football coach and union member at a high school in Minnesota before getting into politics. Recently, he attacked former President Trump and his running mate JD Vance as "weird," a viral insult the Harris campaign has embraced.
A former member of Congress from a Republican-leaning district, Walz has proven appeal with rural, White voters, though he has also championed progressive policies as governor, such as free school meals and expanded paid worker leave. While Minnesota is a solidly Democratic state, it is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial battlegrounds.
The Harris campaign will hope that his name on the ticket will bolster their chances of winning the upper Midwest. He is also the current chairman of the Democratic Governor's Association.
Walz’s name has received far more national attention in recent weeks compared to his previous years in politics, and was among the first Democrats to lambaste Republicans as "weird" in a political insult that’s gaining momentum in the 2024 cycle.
"These are weird people on the other side, they want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that's what it comes down to," he said on MSNBC last month. "Don't get sugarcoating this, these are weird ideas."
Walz, however, has faced criticism for his handling of COVID-19 and riots that rocked Minneapolis in 2020, Fox News Digital previously reported.
"[H]e's been a disaster for Minnesota and is by far the most partisan governor that I can remember having," Minnesota GOP Chairman David Hann told Fox News Digital last week. "Going back to 2020, certainly – he did nothing to try to stop the riots going on in Minneapolis. I think he was fearful of alienating his ‘progressive’ base, who were supporting the riots. Kamala Harris was raising money for the rioters."
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Some critics point to Walz's memorandum mandating indoor masking during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as setting up a hotline to report residents who violated COVID-19 mandates, as FOX 9 Minneapolis reported at the time.
He has also taken heat for telling a group of Democrats that socialism is what some people would call "neighborliness."
"Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values," he said on a "White Dudes for Harris" call on Monday night. "One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.
Fox News Digital's Emma Colton, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
