By: Jacob Fischler – Ohio Capital Journal

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday in a move meant to boost the Democratic ticket’s appeal in key Midwestern states and with blue-collar voters.

Walz, a former social studies teacher and Army National Guard veteran who won challenging elections in a rural U.S. House district before running for governor in 2018 and winning reelection in 2022, balances Harris geographically and demographically, while bringing a history of campaign wins in purple-to-red areas and a governing record among the most progressive of any contender to join the ticket.

“One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep,” Harris wrote in a statement. “It’s personal. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his own. We are going to build a great partnership. We start out as underdogs but I believe together, we can win this election.”

Walz was also seen as the preferred vice presidential pick of the party’s progressive wing, especially as an alternative to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Harris interviewed both governors, and U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, in Washington Sunday as she whittled down her shortlist.

Little known until recently outside his home state to all but the closest political observers, Walz’s laid-back style and approachable demeanor — and straightforward attacks on Republican rivals Donald Trump and J.D. Vance — over weeks of consistent national TV appearances won praise from Democratic officials and strategists who have struggled to break Trump’s hold over white voters without college degrees.

Walz, 60, emerged in recent weeks as one of the party’s top communicators through the power of a single adjective for Republicans and their policy goals.

“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said in a July 23 interview on MSNBC. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room … These are weird ideas.”

Despite the best efforts of President Joe Biden’s abandoned reelection bid to describe Republicans under Trump’s leadership as a threat to U.S. democracy and reproductive rights who couldn’t be trusted to responsibly govern, the attacks didn’t stick and Trump continued to climb in the polls.

But shortly after Biden’s July 21 exit from the race, Democrats embraced the succinct message that has been credited to the Minnesota governor.

“I am loving Tim Walz on TV,” Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic strategist, told States Newsroom in a July interview on potential vice presidential picks for Harris.

“I love that he’s just so down-to-earth and so pithy and that he’s like, ‘These guys are weird,’” she added. “That’s exactly it — we are overcomplicating what this message has to be.”

In a statement, Shapiro said he was grateful to have been considered for Harris’ running mate and would continue his work as governor, calling that role “the highest honor” of his life.

Shapiro congratulated Walz, saying he would be an “exceptionally strong addition to the ticket.” He said he would work to help the Harris-Walz ticket win in November.

“Vice President Kamala Harris has my enthusiastic support – and I know that Governor Tim Walz is an exceptionally strong addition to the ticket who will help Kamala move our country forward,” he wrote. “Over the next 92 days, I look forward to traveling all across the Commonwealth to unite Pennsylvanians behind Kamala Harris’ campaign to defeat Donald Trump, become the 47th President of the United States, and build a better future for our country.”

According to his official schedule, Shapiro is scheduled to speak at Walz’s first public appearance with Harris, a rally in Philadelphia Tuesday evening.

‘Far-left radical’

Shortly after reports of the Walz choice surfaced, Trump’s campaign blasted him in a statement that sought to undercut his appeal to rural Midwestern voters and tie him to Harris’ Bay Area background, potentially previewing the attacks Walz will see throughout the three months leading up to Election Day.

“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 campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

“If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”

Leavitt highlighted Walz’s signature on a bill to require the state move to 100% non-carbon energy by 2040.

A political action committee associated with Trump also slammed the Minnesota governor.

A written statement from MAGA Inc. criticized Walz’s positions on transgender rights and immigration, as well as his response to the riots in Minneapolis after police there killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man.

The PAC also sought to tie Walz to a federal fraud case in the state that saw five convicted in federal court of taking federal COVID-19 relief money intended to feed needy children. The case dealt with a nonprofit, but a June report from the state auditor found the state’s Department of Education failed to properly oversee the federal payments.

“Governor Tim Walz and Kamala Harris will get along just great,” the statement said. “They’re both far-left radicals that don’t know how to govern.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is also from San Francisco, said in an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday that characterizations of Walz as far-left were “mystifying.”

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

As the top Democrat on the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee, Walz made “tremendous, tremendous gains” for veterans, Pelosi said.

Communicating rural values

Walz, who grew up in a rural community in Nebraska, has slammed national Republicans for a relentless focus on cultural issues. He’s trained that criticism recently on Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio whose rise to Republican vice presidential nominee was built on his controversial book detailing the lives of people in impoverished rural areas of Kentucky.

Vance and Republicans have “obsessions” with taking away rights, Walz has said, especially related to reproductive rights and education that includes discussion of gender and sexuality.

“The golden rule that makes small towns work so we’re not at each other’s throats all the time in a little town is: Mind your own damn business,” Walz told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on July 25. “I don’t need him (Vance) to tell me about my family, I don’t need him to tell me about my wife’s health care and her reproductive rights, I don’t need him telling my children what books to read.”

Walz instead projects a pragmatic vision of Democratic governance.

“They scream socialism, we just build roads and we build schools and we build prosperity into this,” he told Psaki.

Working-class message

As governor, Walz has notched a series of policy wins he can boast to the party’s progressive wing about. He signed laws to offer free meals to all public school students, expand abortion access and legalize some recreational uses of THC.

But the sometimes bespectacled former high school teacher and football coach, who has donned t-shirts and hunting caps in national TV hits, also projects an image of Midwestern pragmatism.

That may help balance voters’ views of a Democratic ticket led by Harris, who would be the first woman president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second Black president, and who is seen as more liberal than most in the party after climbing the ranks through Democratic primaries in California.

Christopher Devine, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, said Walz’s appeal is not unlike that of Harris’ last running mate.

“Walz has a message that kind of reminds me of Joe Biden’s appeal, kind of a working-class focus,” he said. “He can speak from a rural background, he’s been a teacher and a coach and has a military background as well. He seems to me like he’s someone who could maybe help with kind of a working-class message.”

The campaign will depend on Walz to carry that message to neighboring Wisconsin and other crucial Rust Belt states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Kim Lyons contributed to this report.