After the vice president Last month, Kamala Harris rose to the top of the Democratic field, forcing the newcomer to rush through a typically months-long vetting process. The race turned out to be a friendly white race from battleground states, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in the lead.
“One of the things that struck me about Tim is how deeply he believes in the struggle for middle-class families. It’s personal,” Harris wrote. In the current situation “We are going to build a great partnership. We are going to build a great team. And we are going to win this election,” she announced Tuesday.
Walz is hugely popular in his home state, a state he has successfully governed on a message of economic progress and progressive policies aimed at helping working families. His salt-of-the-earth charm makes him hard to dislike, and he’s also an incredibly effective communicator. He’s been called the “joyful warrior,” and photos of him smiling while cuddling a piglet and laughing on amusement rides with his daughter have gone viral, fueling rumors that he’s in the running for a spot on the ticket. But while Walz is the quintessential Midwestern dad, he’s also an expert at criticizing Republicans, and can be brutal when necessary.
Here's a small sampling of the times new vice presidential nominee Harris has attacked Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and the Republican Party:
When he started calling Trump and Vance “weird”
Walz has been widely credited with the Democratic shift in messaging toward Trump and Vance, calling them what they are: very strange. He did so in a series of successful TV spots that began last month. “These guys are very strange,” Walz said on MSNBC after tearing apart J.D. Vance’s claims that he understands small-town America. “They’re running for a men’s club that hates women or something.”
Later, he explained the line of attack to CNN's Jake Tapper: “My point on this was that people kept talking about how Trump would end women's lives – which is 100 percent true. Trump would potentially end our constitutional freedoms and end voting – I think all of those things are real possibilities. But that gives him too much power. Listen to the guy. He talks about Hannibal Lecter and scary sharks and whatever he can think of. I think we give him too much credit.”
When he defeated a six-term Republican to win his seat in the House of Representatives
Before his election as a representative, Tim Walz was a soldier, high school teacher, and football coach. According to Walz, he decided to run for the House of Representatives in 2004 after several of his students were denied entry to a speech by former President George W. Bush in his hometown of Mankato, Minnesota, because they had previously volunteered for the Democrats.
“Despite my passion for politics, I was not overly involved in political campaigns, and many people thought a high school teacher and football coach had no chance,” Walz wrote on X in 2020.
In 2006, Walz ran and won, defeating six-term Republican incumbent Jill Gutknecht. He then served six terms before running for governor in 2018.
When he refuted Republican accusations that his policies were “socialist,”
“They scream socialism, but we build roads and schools and prosperity in this,” he told MSNBC, before criticizing how Trump and Republicans want to go “backwards” and “give tax cuts to the wealthy.”
“I'm all for pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, but we didn't have any boots. Social Security was the answer, and we pulled ourselves up and paid for it,” he added.
When the Republican Party card was exposed as a fake
“These are weirdos on the other side,” Walz told MSNBC. “They want to take your books away, they want to be in your exam room. Listen to them talk, listen to how they talk about things… [Republican leadership] Tell [Republicans] “They don’t have to talk about racism, but they can’t change it. It’s become part of their DNA because they don’t have a clear plan.”
Walz continued to attack Republican policies before directly attacking Trump and Vance. “A real estate tycoon and a businessman trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are,” he said.
When he and the state legislature passed a package of progressive reforms in Minnesota,
Walz won the Minnesota governorship in 2018 in a landslide against Republican Jeff Johnson. It was initially a tough sell, as Republicans controlled the state Senate during the first years of his term.
In 2023, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party secured control of both chambers for the first time in a decade. The result was a progressive legislative round that saw Walz sign into law free school meals for all, protections for reproductive freedoms, child tax credits, paid leave, massive infrastructure packages, universal background checks for firearms, and much more.
Walz called the 93rd Minnesota Legislative Session “the most productive in Minnesota history,” and “the most pro-middle-class and pro-labor session we’ve ever seen.”
As Harris begins her search for a vice presidential candidate, there is no doubt that Walz's accomplishments in his tenure have tipped the scales in his favor.
When he spoke so frankly about his feelings about Trump
“How many times in 100 days can you change the course of the world,” Walz said of the renewed effort to oust Trump. “How many times can you do something that will impact generations to come. How many times can you wake up that son of a bitch and find out that a black woman kicked him in the face and sent him into the street?”
When he was a Midwestern dad – in the best way possible.
Walz is more approachable than all of the Republicans combined.
When he defended Harris' candidacy and made clear that the Republican Party was stuck with Trump,
“Democrats are prepared to act when the situation demands it,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “No matter the conviction, no matter the failed policies, the Republican Party is stuck with Donald Trump. He’s yours, welcome. The Democratic Party can make our decisions and pick our nominee. If you don’t like him, don’t vote for him in November.”
When I explain that the American dream is for everyone
“When someone else has rights, it’s not easy, rights are not. There’s enough for everyone. Same thing with jobs. Same thing with housing. Same thing with health care.”
“Yes, they are a threat,” he continued, speaking of Trump and the Republicans, “but we are not going to stay in their frame, we are not going to stay where they are, we are not going to play their game. We have called them out for the bizarre nonsense they believe and we have made a different argument to the American public, an argument that everyone matters, an argument where we can achieve, an argument where we can solve problems.”
