US Vice President Kamala Harris, who officially became the Democratic Presidential Nominee yesterday, has picked Minnesota Governor and former high school teacher Tim Walz as her running mate ahead of the November 5 Presidential election.
Analysts in the US believe that Harris and Walz’s combination is good enough to upstage Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance. Still, many Republicans believe Walz is a weak pick. Several Republican lawmakers and leaders describe Walz as a “far-left” governor.
Walz was probably selected for being plainspoken, and his stature in a Midwestern town could appeal to independent and conservative voters. Walz came to the national limelight when he called Trump and JD Vance “weird,” a phrase Harris has often copied when talking about her primary opponent.
Walz will be officially unveiled as Harris’s running mate at a rally in Philadelphia, and then they will tour key battleground states.
Democratic National Convention had announced that 99% of Democratic delegates officially crowned Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party presidential nominee after a five-day online ballot.
Before this, however, she had secured the 1,976 delegate votes she needed to become the Democratic Party Nominee within 32 hours of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal. However, the party had to wait to conclude the process, stipulating that an online vote must be completed to make it official.
Analysts said that one of the main reasons Tim Walz was chosen is his ability to woo white, working-class Americans. This key demographic has helped fuel and maintain Donald Trump’s political fortunes in this country.
A former school teacher, football coach and long-time member of the Army National Guard, Walz started running for office in his 40s. In his first race, he successfully ran against a Republican in Minnesota’s rural, traditionally conservative 1st Congressional District. He was re-elected five times before he left Capitol Hill.
While Republicans are already attacking him as “too liberal”, some of the policies he implemented as Minnesota’s governor proved broadly popular among the state’s Democrats and Republicans.
In 2023, Walz signed an executive order removing the college degree requirement for 75% of Minnesota’s state jobs. Several other states later copied the initiative.
Walz is also said to be a gun owner and hunter, although his support among gun rights groups slipped after he backed tighter restrictions on firearms ownership.
However, in his characteristic manner, the Trump-Vance campaign team has issued a statement in which they condemned Walz, calling him a “dangerously liberal extremist” who was put on the Democratic ticket to aid Harris’ progressive agenda.
In a video posted on X, the Trump campaign team said Harris “doubled down on her radical vision for America by tapping another left-wing extremist as her nominee”, calling their platform “dangerously liberal”.
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