The Democratic candidate for the presidential elections, Kamala Harris, announced in a written message to her supporters that she has chosen the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her vice presidential nominee.
Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota whom Kamala Harris selected as her vice presidential nominee for the November elections, is a National Guard veteran and former educator, with political experience after serving for 12 years in the House of Representatives, although his political career has not been typical.
As reported by the Greek News Agency, although little known outside the borders of his state, the 60-year-old Walz has stood out in recent weeks for his sharp comments regarding Donald Trump and his associates, whom he refers to as “weirdos.”
“We are not afraid of the weirdos,” he said at a recent campaign rally. “Trust my experience in education, bullies have no power.”
Who is Tim Walz
Walz is originally from Nebraska and spent many years in education, as a geography teacher and American football coach. Notably, he taught for a few months in China, immediately after the events of Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989.
“Being at a Chinese high school during that critical time felt really important to me,” he admitted years later, before a U.S. Congressional committee, where he was elected for 12 years.
When the first rumors of him being a vice presidential candidate alongside Kamala Harris surfaced, some internet users wondered if the two were really the same age: they cited a photograph of the balding Tim Walz as evidence to the contrary.
“I supervised the school cafeteria for 20 years. You don’t do that job without pulling your hair out,” the 60-year-old humorously responded on platform X.
In January 2019, Tim Walz was elected governor of Minnesota, a state bordering Canada, in the Great Lakes region. About a year later, he had to face two major crises: the Covid-19 pandemic and the death of African American George Floyd during his violent arrest by a white police officer. Minneapolis, the largest city in the state, became the starting point of a massive anti-racist protest movement that shook the U.S. for many months.
Republicans accuse the governor of “laxity” in addressing crime, while Democrats, on the other hand, praise him for his record on protecting the right to abortion. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 that overturned the constitutional protection of this right at the federal level, Tim Walz pledged that his state would become a sanctuary for women seeking abortions. A clinic in neighboring North Dakota—where legislation is much stricter—moved across the border to Minnesota.
In March 2024, Walz joined Kamala Harris during her visit to an abortion clinic—the first visit by a U.S. vice president to such a healthcare institution.
Walz has championed women’s reproductive rights but has also shown conservative tendencies, at a time when he represented a rural district in Minnesota in the House, a former Republican stronghold: at that time, he advocated for farmers’ interests and supported the right to bear arms.
Minnesota is a state that traditionally votes Democratic but is also close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two battleground states deemed crucial for the election of the next president. Walz has the ability to attract white voters in rural areas who in recent years have widely supported Republican Donald Trump. Harris’s team also hopes that Walz’s career in the National Guard, his successful track record as a school football coach, and his humorous videos will attract voters who are hesitant about sending Trump back to the White House.
Recently, Walz also questioned the claims made by Trump and his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, regarding their dedication to the “middle class.” “They keep talking about the middle class. A capitalist real estate agent and a venture capital investor are trying to tell us that they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are,” he said in an interview with MSNBC.
Walz is Lutheran and has two children with his wife, Gwen Whipple, whom he has been married to since 1994.
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