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Governor Tim Walz was largely unknown to voters outside Minnesota when Kamala Harris began her search for a running mate. Within just days, he made a name for himself with one “weird” trick — a viral attack depicting Republicans as oddballs — and became a favorite of progressives looking for a credible champion to hold off moderate Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
But just as Walz introduced himself in a short time as a wisecracking Midwestern dad who delivered results, his opponents are hoping to quickly rebrand him as a far-left favorite. Democrats want voters to see a career teacher and military veteran who fought to provide free meals to students. Republicans say he pursued an agenda outside the mainstream as governor, oversaw out-of-control rioting, and leapfrogged a popular Jewish politician to appease anti-Israel activists. The race to define Harris’ new running mate is on.
In this article:
The View From Democrats
The dream among Walz supporters is that he’ll be a happy warrior — just about every Democrat we spoke to mentioned his sense of humor — who bridges the gap between uniting the base and reaching out to new voters. His biography of growing up in Nebraska, joining the Army national guard, and becoming a teacher in Mankato, Minnesota also matches up well with JD Vance, who has introduced himself as a champion of forgotten small town Americans.
“I’m thrilled,” Vermont Rep. Becca Balint, a progressive Democrat, told Semafor. “He was my pick from the first moment I saw him on TV talking about Harris and the sharp contrast between her and the Trump/Vance ticket. He’s a great surrogate, and as a representative from a rural state I’m excited about his ability to speak to blue collar and rural Americans. He’s also a joyful person and we need more of that.”
On the opposite side of the spectrum in Congress, independent Sen. Joe Manchin — who had briefly considered running against Harris for the nomination — hailed Walz as “the real deal.”
“My friend Governor Tim Walz will bring normality back to the most chaotic political environment that most of us have ever seen,” he said in a statement.
There’s a somewhat Biden-esque arc to Walz’s career, some Democrats noted: He had a relatively centrist record in Congress while representing a competitive rural seat, but a progressive record as governor in his second term, when Democrats won a narrow majority in its state legislature and pursued a raft of party priorities. Much like Biden, supporters described him as a backslapping coalition-builder who could manage competing interests to deliver victories and temper expectations when necessary.
“He’s a pragmatic Midwesterner Democrat,” former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, a moderate who ran a competitive race against JD Vance in 2022, told Semafor. Ryan gushed about Walz’s personal and political skills, and showed little concern about efforts to paint him as radical (“the only card they have is to call him a name”). Walz, he said, had the messaging chops to rebut whatever attacks he received.
“He’ll be awesome,” Ryan said. “Too often candidates have fallen into the trap of getting too wonky and having a 10 point policy plan that nobody wants to listen to…Tim has a way of speaking to the same values, the same goals, same strategies, but just doing it in a way that’s more ‘common touch’ and that people can understand.”
Ryan and many other Democrats pointed to Walz’s personal affability as a likely factor in Harris’ choice. This view was especially pronounced in the House, where Walz was a member from 2007 to 2019 and enjoyed plenty of support during the running mate search.
Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver called Walz an “everyman” and said they were part of a decade-long group chat of 25-30 members called the “Sports Buddies” that also included former Reps. Ed Perlmutter and Joe Crowley.
“Truly one of the nicest guys I’ve ever served with,” Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle told Semafor.
“I was hoping she would pick him,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a California Democrat who took office after Walz had left. “He’s down to earth, keeps it real, and understands middle America and Congress.”
The View From Republicans
At least some within Trump’s orbit seem to be breathing a sigh of relief that Harris didn’t go with Shapiro, who they worried throughout the process might have been more difficult to define and attack. There are Democrats who winced at the choice as well, hoping Shapiro would give the party a better shot at his must-win state. Trump responded to the Walz news with two words on Truth Social: “THANK YOU!”
“Walz is a cornucopia of liberal psychosis,” one person close to the Trump campaign texted. “He’s like a picnic for the Trump-Vance campaign.”
Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance suggested that picking Walz over someone like Shapiro represented anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party, and Harris bowing to that. Shapiro’s history of support for Israel, especially his criticism of campus protests, had led some progressives to oppose him joining the ticket. Some of Shapiro’s supporters argued this argument was unfair — and perhaps tied to his religious and ethnic background — given that he had also been a critic of the current Israeli government and the rest of the VP field held relatively conventional pro-Israel positions.
“They will have not picked Shapiro frankly because of antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party,” Vance told Hugh Hewitt. “The far-left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American.”
Walz’s record included numerous agenda items that Republicans had eagerly attacked in races around the country, putting him in a familiar comfort zone for advertisers, strategists, and surrogates. Team Trump highlighted how he signed an executive order protecting minors traveling to the state for gender transition care and a bill that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. The Trump-aligned Super PAC MAGA INC. sent out a press release describing the Democratic ticket as “far-left radicals,” and Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that “Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”
Republicans also pointed to criticism over his response to riots in Minneapolis back in 2020, which raged for multiple nights before local and state law enforcement officials could reassert control. Walz has argued he did the best he could in a fast-moving situation in a place that ended up the epicenter for protests and unrest throughout the entire country.
“This ticket puts criminals ahead of citizens,” RNC chairman Michael Whatley tweeted.
Notable
- CBS News has a rundown of Walz’s top accomplishments and setbacks as governor and how they have been portrayed by both parties in the state.
- The New York Times reviews Walz’s record overseeing the state response to the 2020 riots in Minneapolis, which are already a focus of Republican attacks.
- Walz’s selection runs into a buzzsaw of Israel politics, Semafor’s David Weigel and Kadia Goba report.