“The kind of vice president America deserves”

Kamala Harris on Tuesday praised her running mate, Tim Walz, who in return thanked the Democratic candidate for “bringing back joy.”

Kamala Harris has chosen her running mate, who will become the vice president of the United States if the Democrats win. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is described as a genuine, down-to-earth, and jovial man. But will his progressive ideas help the presidential candidate appeal to undecided Americans?

“Wow!” Tim Walz said as he looked out at the crowd gathered in Philadelphia for the first rally of the Harris-Walz ticket. He turned to the current vice president, who is running for president. “Thanks for bringing back the joy,” he told her.

The 60-year-old politician drew cheers from the crowd, especially when M^me Harris discussed his career as a high school teacher and football coach.

“Tim Walz is the kind of teacher and mentor that every American child dreams of having and that every child deserves,” the vice president said.

C’est le genre d’entraîneur […] who makes people feel like they belong and inspires them to dream big. That’s the kind of vice president he will be. And that’s the kind of vice president America deserves.

Kamala Harris on her running mate Tim Walz

Tim Walz’s name was not known to the general public until recently. A comment on television about Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance propelled him to the forefront: “They’re just weird.”

A phrase since taken up by the leaders of the Democratic Party on all platforms.

“It took over the Internet, and people started to take a little more notice of it,” says Cynthia Rugeley of the University of Minnesota Duluth.

“All the boxes”

Tim Walz “checks all the boxes,” she adds: he comes from a rural background, often more difficult for Democrats to penetrate, something that Ms.^me Harris, who drew a parallel between their humble origins.

“The promise of America is what allows two middle-class children—one a daughter from Oakland, California, raised by a working mother, the other a son from the plains of Nebraska who grew up working on a farm— […] to go to the White House together,” she said.

Tim Walz is also a veteran, having joined the Army National Guard at age 17. He unseated a Republican in a conservative district when he ran for the House of Representatives. After a career as a high school geography and social studies teacher, he gained political experience, first as a representative from 2007 to 2019 and then as governor of Minnesota, starting in 2019.

But he is also a Democrat who is recognized as a progressive, a difficult label to bear in many parts of the United States. Donald Trump’s campaign was quick to portray him as a “dangerous extremist leftist.”

“It’s kind of surprising that he was chosen, because he’s quite progressive by American standards, and Harris is too, whereas you might have expected someone more conservative or more to the center,” says David Schultz of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

While Tim Walz was governor and both houses of the state were controlled by Democrats, Minnesota passed measures to protect abortion rights, to protect gun control, to provide paid family and medical leave, to provide free school meals, to protect gender affirmation.

“It will be interesting to see how it plays out in swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, where people are clearly more conservative,” Schultz said.

Pivotal States

The battle for the White House is being played out among just a few hundred thousand voters, spread across a handful of key states, he points out. They will most likely determine the winner of the race, due to a peculiarity of the American system: it is the Electoral College, still composed of 538 electors, that elects the president.

Except in Maine and Nebraska, the candidate with the most votes in a state wins all the electoral votes awarded to the state. In swing states, the margins between candidates are narrow, and can be favorable to one party or the other depending on the year. Hence the special importance given to the votes of their residents.

“If you look at the ticket as a whole, Harris will probably be more popular than Biden was in states like Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, maybe even North Carolina,” said Theda Skocpol of Harvard University.

Walz will probably be very effective in speaking to people in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, maybe even Ohio.

Theda Skocpol, Harvard University

Tim Walz could win the attention of workers and farmers in these key states, given his experience. “He has really good support from unions, and they can be very helpful in getting out the vote,” says M.^me Skocpol.

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The choice of running mate is not usually a deciding factor in an election campaign. But it can send a message about the presidential candidate’s priorities. A blunder by a running mate can also taint the contender for the highest office in the land and become the news that is impossible to forget.

Dissension over the candidacy of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who until Tuesday was considered the frontrunner to become Harris’ running mate, appears to have worked against him. Activists criticized him for his support for Israel. Despite the importance of Pennsylvania, the swing state with the most electoral votes, Mr. Shapiro was not nominated, but he quickly offered his support to what he called his “friends” on X. “That’s going to be a big endorsement, and he’s got a good political future,” Mr. Shapiro predicted.^me Skocpol.

At the Philadelphia rally on Tuesday, Mr.^me Harris and Mr. Walz complimented the Pennsylvania governor. “You have such a treasure in Josh Shapiro,” Mr. Walz told the crowd.

Reviews

Tim Walz will need to make himself known outside Minnesota quickly to counter his opponents’ messages, M believes.^me Rugeley.

He’s been criticized for COVID-19 measures, for example, but Minnesotans are generally happy with him.

Cynthia Rugeley, University of Minnesota Duluth

Republicans also criticized him for the delay between the start of the 2020 riots, following the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, and the use of the National Guard.

The governor and his administration are also being singled out for their failures in a food program fraud scheme under Mr. Walz’s watch.

The new Democratic ticket’s campaign begins three months before the election, and Mr. Walz has promised voters he will work twice as hard. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” he told the crowd in Philadelphia.

With Agence France-Presse, The New York Times and CNN