Tim Walz was chosen Tuesday by Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to second her in the race for the White House, an appointment that confirms the atypical career of this former teacher turned governor.
Not exactly known outside the borders of his home state of Minnesota, the sixty-year-old has distinguished himself in recent weeks by his repeated little digs at Donald Trump and his entourage, whom he has constantly described as “weird guys.”
“We’re not afraid of weird guys,” the affable, fast-talking lawmaker said at a campaign rally. “Trust me as a teacher, bullies have no power.”
This Nebraska native has spent many years in the teaching profession, notably as a geography teacher and American football coach.
Interestingly, this man with the small rectangular glasses taught for a few months in China, just after the Tiananmen events of spring 1989.
“Being able to be in a Chinese high school at that crucial moment seemed really essential to me,” he would confide years later before a committee of the American Congress, on which he would sit for 12 years.
When rumors first surfaced that he was going to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, some people wondered if the pair were really the same age, posting a photo of Tim Walz with a receding hairline.
“I was a canteen supervisor for 20 years. You don’t do that job without tearing your hair out,” the 60-year-old elected official replied on X, with humor.
The aftermath of George Floyd’s death
In January 2019, Tim Walz became governor of Minnesota, a state in the Great Lakes region bordering Canada.
Barely a year later, he is forced to juggle two major crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of African-American George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer.
Minneapolis, the state’s largest city, is ablaze, the starting point of a huge movement of anti-racist protests that will shake America for many months.
Republicans accuse the governor of being too lax in his management of crime, while Democrats, on the contrary, praise his record on protecting the right to abortion.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2022 annulling the constitutional protection of abortion (Roe v. Wade), Tim Walz has indeed pledged to make his state a sanctuary for women seeking abortions.
A clinic in the much more repressive neighboring state of North Dakota then moved to its side of the border.
In March 2024, he participated in the first trip by a vice-president to an abortion clinic, Kamala Harris, with whom he now hopes to reach the White House.