Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, choosing the progressive politician and straightforward orator from America’s heartland to help bring rural white voters to her side, US media reported.
Walz, a 60-year-old US National Guard veteran and former teacher, was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006 from a district that leaned Republican and served for 12 years before being elected governor of Minnesota in 2018.
As governor, Walz pushed a progressive agenda that included free school meals, climate change goals, tax cuts for the middle class, and expanded paid leave for Minnesota workers.
Walz has long advocated for women’s reproductive rights, but has also demonstrated conservative views by representing a rural district in the US House of Representatives, defending agriculture and supporting gun rights.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, adds to the popularity of Midwestern politicians whose home state reliably votes Democratic in presidential elections but is close to Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial battleground districts.
Such states are considered crucial in this year’s election, and Walz is widely seen as adept at finding common ground with white, rural voters who in recent years have voted heavily for Republican Donald Trump, Harris’s rival for the White House.
Harris’ campaign hopes that Walz’s extensive career in the National Guard, combined with his success as a high school football coach and his jokey videos about his father, will attract the kind of voters who are not yet tuned in to Trump’s second term in the White House.
Harris, 59, revived the Democratic Party’s hopes of winning the election by becoming its nominee after 81-year-old President Joe Biden ended his failed reelection bid under pressure from the party on July 21.
