Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was formally accepted as the Democratic vice president nominee for presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 21. He was chosen from the final shortlist released on Thursday, Aug. 1, which included Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Walz appealed to Harris over the other candidates because of his every-man character, which makes him well-liked in many Republican-leaning states that may be critical for Harris to rack up electoral votes. Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard, graduated with a social science degree and spent a year teaching abroad in China before returning home to serve full time in the Army National Guard. Later, he became a high school teacher and football coach.
“Walz is portrayed as a homegrown, very down-to-earth apolitical kind of person,” Advanced Placement World History teacher Devin Schaller said. “People have their minds made up, and he’s not going to sway people because of his profession as a teacher. Walz being the counter to who Kamala is and her identity will work well to try and get some voters who are kind of on the fence, that are more independent and might be swayed by some of who he is or who his policies are.”
Harris believes Walz’s authentic, midwestern persona could appeal to Midwest voters as she is currently trailing in polls in states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Unlike Harris’ shifting political positions on topics like marijuana and gun control, his policies have remained steady throughout his political career.
“Walz has done impressive amounts of work in signing in progressive legislation as the governor of Minnesota, but you also need a vice president that you can trust,” Politics Club Vice President Sidd Ojha said. “He displays this father-like character that shows a mix of warmth and maturity that appeals to voters.”
Walz was elected twice as governor due to his legislative accomplishments. Minnesota Democrats won back the majority in the state Senate last year and enacted free breakfast and lunch in schools and expanded paid family leave.
Walz’s efforts to make education and commodities more affordable for Americans aligns with what Harris is running on. Her proposed child tax credit goes hand-in-hand with the paid family leave policy that Walz passed last year. Also last year, Walz signed the North Star Promise Scholarship Program to make public colleges in Minnesota tuition-free for low-income students.
As vice president, Harris supported President Joe Biden’s canceling of $160 billion in federal student loans. As attorney general, Harris pushed the Department of Education to do more to give relief to students tens of thousands of dollars in debt because of dishonest practices by for-profit schools. As a U.S. Senator Harris voted for the College for All Act to make four-year public colleges and universities free for families making up to $125,000 and community college free for everyone, but it did not ultimately become law.
Last year, Walz signed several gun control measures into law that expanded universal background checks to private transfers of weapons. He also created a “red flag” law that allows a family member, guardian, city or county attorney or police chief to intervene and ask a court to take weapons away from someone if they are suspected to be at high risk of hurting themselves or others.
“As a veteran, gun owner, hunter and dad, I know basic gun safety isn’t a threat to the Second Amendment–it’s about keeping our kids safe,” Walz said in a tweet last year. “There’s no place for weapons of war in our schools, churches, banks or anywhere else people are just trying to live their lives.”
On April 11, Harris launched the Safer States Initiative in order to control gun sales, implementing licensing and background checks for gun sellers. She created the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. She also discussed background checks and responsible gun ownership.
“Most gun deaths are suicides; they are localized, regional things, not mass shootings,” Schaller said. “Even though obviously they happen way too frequently, they’re not a big portion of what constitutes gun violence in this country. [Red flag laws] are effective at stopping those things because if you have family members that have a history of mental illness and you are concerned about them, [if] they should have a weapon, and the red flag laws will stop that. If you look at the most recent mass shooting in Georgia, it was a child, so how are red flag laws really going to help that? It’s hard to say.”
As governor, Walz signed a bill into law that requires public schools to provide free menstrual products, beginning in the fourth grade. In a survey by Thinx, Inc. last year, nearly one in four students were found to have struggled to afford period products.
“He ordered tampons to be put into boys’ bathrooms,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Montana in August. “Do we have any children here? Please close your ears. He ordered tampons in boys’ bathrooms.”
Critics argue that this law should have not been passed because it requires period products to be stocked in male bathrooms as well as female. However, individual districts have the power to choose whether or not to supply period products in the male restrooms. All Minnesota school districts that put out statements about the availability of period products to students stated that they were made available only in girls’ bathrooms and in non-gendered bathrooms, and often in school health offices.
Walz also legalized recreational marijuana. Harris similarly opposes the federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, on the same level as heroin and higher than fentanyl. During the Biden-Harris presidency, the president gave pardons to thousands of Americans who were convicted for federal marijuana possession and reduced long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.
Walz protected abortion rights and reproductive freedom in the Minnesota Constitution, which ties well with Harris’ messaging. She has already pushed out political advertisements in favor of abortion and other reproductive health rights. Abortion has become a highly important topic, especially for female voters–a critical demographic for Harris.
Walz was previously a representative for Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives, campaigning for the opposition of the Iraq War. He is anti-interventionist in foreign policy and has delivered a speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations about Islamophobia. However, Walz has been criticized for sending in the national guard during the George Floyd protests and for making it harder to prosecute cops.
Harris holds similar foreign policy positions. Both have advocated at some point in their legislative career for stricter immigrant screenings on the border. The vice president has repeatedly set herself as one of the most pro-military democrats while being pro-ceasefire.
“Strategy for politics is always closely guarded, so we don’t know why they are choosing who they are choosing,” Schaller said. “But we can assume a better choice might have been Shapiro–who’s the governor of Pennsylvania–because Pennsylvania is a pretty big swing state that the Democrats are worried about getting the electoral votes, but time will tell.”
Walz was one of many choices considered to be on the ballot as vice president for the Democrats, and only time will tell whether or not he will have a positive or negative impact on Harris’ campaign. Regardless of what the future holds though, Walz, as of now, appears to be the preferred candidate for the Democrats due to his policies being relatively well received within the party and similar to Harris’.
