Kamala selects Tim Walz as running mate

Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday that she has chosen Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, according to multiple reports.

Walz, a Midwestern Democrat with deep ties to labor movements, will be seen as an opportunity for Harris to hang on to some of the “blue wall” states that President Joe Biden flipped from Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Résumé-wise, Walz is impressive: he was born in a small town in Nebraska, joined the Army National Guard, worked as a high-school social studies teacher and was elected to Congress in 2006. He won the governor’s mansion in Minnesota in 2018 and won reelection in 2022.

Progressives over the past few weeks have pushed hard for Walz as his name popped up on the shortlist next to Arizona senator Mark Kelly, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said that Walz and Beshear were his top picks for the veep slot. “That’s who we believe would be best for labor and for working-class people but you know, that’s her decision,” Fain said. Democrats also glommed onto Walz’s slate of recent media interviews in which he branded the Trump-Vance ticket as “weird,” which became a popular party talking point.

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room… They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no healthcare plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,” Walz said in July.

As of last week, Harris was reportedly between Walz and Shapiro. However, Shapiro faced on onslaught of negative press. Shapiro’s top aide stayed in his role for six months after being accused of sexual harassment and questions are swirling over Shapiro’s time as attorney general, during which the AG’s office upheld a controversial ruling that a woman who was stabbed dozens of times in the back and head had committed suicide. Perhaps most damaging was Shapiro’s vocal support for Israel, which Democrats feared could hurt the ticket with Arab Americans and university students. Shapiro condemned unruly and sometimes violent campus protests post-October 7 and wrote in a college essay two decades ago that he did not believe Palestinians could be peaceful.

What has been less covered is that Walz has his own history of pro-Israel policies and statements. He was part of a contingent of congressional Democrats that criticized President Barack Obama for allowing the UN Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements, was AIPAC-endorsed and called Israel “our truest and closest ally in the region” at an AIPAC conference in 2010 and opted to ignore protests urging him to divest the Minnesota pension fund from Israel, even canceling a meeting with Students for Justice in Palestine activists.

Walz has plenty of other baggage that could offset the gains he might bring to the Democrats’ usual pro-union base.

Walz was slow to react to riots in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 and reluctant to send in the National Guard, which led to days of chaos and unrest. Walz has acknowledged his response to the riots was an “abject failure.” Meanwhile, Kamala Harris was raising bail money for the rioters and other Minneapolis accused criminals, including at least one who went on to commit murder after being sprung from jail.

Walz also signed into law universal background checks and red-flag laws, signed an executive order allowing sex changes for minors and allowed men to play in women’s sports, gave driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, allowed felons to vote as soon as they complete their sentences and advanced green energy mandates. Walz’s office was accused of failing to stop the largest case of pandemic fraud in the country.

Walz has also said that he wants to invest in a “ladder factory” in response to Trump’s border wall, suggesting that walls don’t work, while adding that without a massive influx of immigrant workers, Americans would be unable to have a Thanksgiving dinner. He also claimed that processing illegal immigrants more quickly would mostly solve the border crisis. Most Americans support building a border wall and mass deportations of illegal immigrants. July’s jobs report found that employment for native-born workers declined over the past year while employment for foreign-born workers increased over the past year.

Harris is set to embark on a swing state campaign tour with her newly announced running mate starting today.