Walz, in his second term as governor of the midwestern state of Minnesota, has been a teacher, high school football coach, member of Congress and a high-ranking member of the National Guard, a background that fits more comfortably with American conservatives.
Some of Walz’s teaching experience includes China, according to a report in BestColleges.
Walz graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska, another midwestern state, with a bachelor’s degree in social science education, according to that report.
He taught high school in China through a programme affiliated with Harvard University, and also served as a visiting fellow of international relations at the Macau Polytechnic University, it added.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he can still converse in Mandarin.
Harris’ decision to pick Walz shows that her team was looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states, which have been key election battlegrounds in recent elections.
According to the Associated Press, a team of lawyers and political operatives led by former US attorney general Eric Holder conducted interviews with potential vice presidential selections.
Other candidates included Mark Kelly, a former Nasa astronaut and Navy captain as well as a popular senator from Arizona, a crucial swing state; Josh Shapiro, a first-term governor in Pennsylvania, an election swing-state battleground where he won by nearly 15 percentage points in 2022; and US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.
Walz, 60, recently called Vance and his allies “weird”, a descriptor that Harris and other party leaders have also used effectively to vilify some of the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s positions, including Vance’s opposition to abortion and his dismissive assessment of “childless cat ladies” who were prominent in Democratic circles.
Since one job a vice-presidential candidate has traditionally held in US politics is to be a sharp critic of the opposing ticket, his effectiveness during interviews on cable news shows helped bring him to the Harris campaign’s attention.
Harris, who last week secured enough votes from Democratic delegates to become the party’s presidential nominee, will face Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, who have struggled to respond to strong support for Harris since President Joe Biden announced last month that he was withdrawing from the campaign and threw his support behind his vice-president.
Harris is the first woman of colour at the top of a major party’s ticket, a possible liability in the Democratic Party’s efforts to win over conservative voters, and a key reason that she had been expected to choose a white man as her running mate.
Republicans have also labelled Harris a “California liberal”, giving her more reason to choose someone from a Republican-leaning or swing state to join her.
The Trump campaign began applying that label to Walz shortly after news of the selection broke.
“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,” Trump’s campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”
It remains to be seen whether Walz gives Harris more momentum in polls, which have shown her roughly even with Trump, and in some cases slightly ahead.
In its latest survey on the 2024 election on Monday, Morning Consult found Harris leading Trump 48 per cent to 44 per cent among registered voters. The poll was conducted between August 2 and August 4 and is based on the responses of 11,265 voters.
Trump’s pick of Vance has been widely seen as dragging the former president’s standing in the polls, giving rise to talk that he may switch to another running mate.
Casey Burgat, director of the legislative affairs programme at George Washington University, said that Walz “has a reputation for pragmatism and working across the aisle”.
“His military background and moderate stances on issues like healthcare, education, and the economy offers a strong counterbalance to the perception that Harris is too liberal, especially in the critical Midwest states,” Burgat said.
“Picking Walz signals to voters that her administration would be willing to embrace a range of viewpoints and govern in a more inclusive and bipartisan manner,” he added.
While most Republicans echoed Leavitt’s comments – including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who called Harris-Walz “the most left-wing ticket in American history” – some prominent political centrists and union leaders praised the choice.
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who switched his affiliation from Democratic to Independent this year, said: “All of the candidates were strong and any one of them would have been a great pick, but I can think of no one better than Governor Walz to help bring our country closer together and bring balance back to the Democratic Party.”
Elizabeth Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of US trade unions, said that “Governor Walz isn’t only an ally to the labour movement, but also our union brother with a deep commitment to a pro-worker agenda.
“The labour movement stands united behind the Harris–Walz ticket.”
Governor Shapiro himself, who had reportedly been the other finalist for the selection but had drawn criticism from some Democratic activists for supporting Israel since its assault against Hamas in Gaza, joined the chorus of positive takes: “Over the next 90 days, I look forward to travelling all across the Commonwealth to unite Pennsylvanians behind my friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump.”
