Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, on Tuesday named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate as she faces off against former President Trump in the 2024 election, according to the Associated Press.
The naming of the 60-year-old Walz was not a shocker, as his name was instantly thought to be in contention in the two weeks since Harris succeeded President Biden as the party’s standard-bearer.
The 60-year-old Walz, a former congressman, is in his second term as governor of Minnesota, a state that Democrats have reliably won in presidential elections for decades but that the Trump campaign has aimed at flipping this cycle.
Having the plainspoken Walz on the national ticket not only helps Harris in Minnesota, it also benefits the vice president in the two neighboring Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan.
Walz, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, may also help Harris when it comes to bringing in campaign cash, as he has helped steer the DGA to record-breaking fundraising this year.
The governor will also be able to showcase a slew of progressive policy victories in Minnesota, including protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access to curb shootings.
Raised in rural Nebraska, Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard in 1981, soon after graduating from high school.
Walz returned to Nebraska to attend Chadron State College, where he graduated in 1989 with a degree in social science education.
He taught English and American History in China for one year through a program at Harvard University before being hired in 1990 as a high school teacher and football and basketball coach in Nebraska. Six years later, he moved to Mankato, Minnesota, to teach geography at Mankato West High.
Waltz was deployed to Italy to support Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003 before retiring two years later from the National Guard at the rank of command sergeant major.
He was elected to the House in 2006 and re-elected five times, representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, a mostly rural district covering the southern part of the state that includes a number of midsize cities. During his last two years on Capitol Hill, he served as ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
Walz won election as governor in 2018 and re-election four years later.