Kamala Harris Calls Tim Walz “A Battle-Tested Leader” After Selecting Minnesota Governor As Her Running Mate — Update

UPDATED, with Harris comment: Tim Walz, the twice-elected governor of Minnesota, has been chosen by Vice President Kamala Harris as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election.

“Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families,” Harris said in a statement to supporters. “I know that he will bring some principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.”

“It’s the honor of a lifetime to join Kamala Harris in this campaign,” Walz wrote on X. “I’m all in. Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school.”

Walz, 60, comes from a state that Democrats are widely expected to win, but his folksy charm and non-Ivy League roots vaulted him to the top of the veepstakes in the past week. He’s also been a choice of progressives in the party.

Boosters of the former schoolteacher who served in the National Guard said he would help bolster the party’s standing among working class voters, as he grew up in rural Nebraska and later lived in a small Minnesota town.

Walz and Harris will appear together at a Philadelphia rally later today.

CNN first reported on the choice of Walz.

A former member of the House of Representatives who was first elected governor in 2018, Walz nevertheless did not have the same national profile as other VP contenders, including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Like other contenders, Walz did a wave of public appearances and media interviews, but his recent description of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as “weird” took off as a Harris campaign talking point.

Two other Minnesotans have served as vice president: Hubert Humphrey, under President Lyndon Johnson, and Walter Mondale, under President Jimmy Carter. Humphrey and Mondale each later won the Democratic nomination for president but lost in the general election.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, called Walz “wonderful.”

“To characterize him as left is so unreal,” she said. “He is right down the middle. He’s a heartland of America Democrat.”

“He has a great vision for our country. It’s about working class families, rural America, it’s about our veterans.”

Republicans quickly criticized the choice, signaling that they will highlight the state’s slow response to quell the protests after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Trump’s campaign quickly labeled Walz a “dangerously liberal extremist.”

“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” the campaign said in a statement.

That said, other potential choices also had drawbacks. Shapiro’s popularity in Pennsylvania would have been looked upon as a key asset in winning a crucial swing state, but there were fears that Shapiro, who is Jewish, would reignite party divisions over the Israel-Gaza conflict. Although his stances don’t differ from Harris and others, his potential selection got pushback on social media and reportedly even from Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA).

Walz won reelection in 2022 with 52% of the vote, while Democrats held on to the state House and took control of the state Senate. Trump has campaigned in the state — with a rally in St. Could last week — as his campaign has set its sights on trying to expand the electoral map. But Minnesota has the longest Democratic presidential winning streak of any state, as Richard Nixon was the last to win it in 1972.

Unlike some of the other Democrats in contention, Walz is not as well known in the donor ATM that is the entertainment industry. In his last gubernatorial campaign, in 2022, he drew $18,825 in contributions from showbiz sources, according to the National Institute on Money in Politics.