On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate.
“As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his,” Harris wrote on social media. “It's great to have him on the team.”
In his own social media post, the 60-year-old called being Harris’ running mate “the honor of a lifetime.”
“I’m all in. Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible,” he wrote. “It reminds me a bit of the first day of school. So, let’s get this done, folks!”
David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University in Minnesota, told L.A.'s Morning News that Walz led a progressive agenda in the state after his latest election.
“[He] got re-elected in 2022 at the same time the Democrats wound up winning both the House and the Senate. The two chambers of our legislature had what's called the trifecta and they moved what many people would say is an incredibly progressive agenda,” he said. “Significant increases in education spending, codified abortion rights, Roe versus Wade, other voting rights legislation, limits on gun usage - pretty much the agenda that many of the progressives would love to be able to see enacted. And I think that boded really well for him in terms of his selection.”
Schultz added that the big hurdle for Gov. Waltz is whether or not he can appeal to swing states.
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“Does somebody from Minnesota really have appeal in Wisconsin, Michigan, and in Pennsylvania, if you consider Pennsylvania to be midwest?” he said. “Clearly Waltz is known in Minnesota. Minnesota is a much more progressive state than those other three. That's a question that we're going to have to see at this point because those states are clearly more conservative than Minnesota is.
Will a progressive as vice president make any difference in those states? Not clear.”
Prior to entering politics in 2006, Walz served in the Army National Guard and was a high school teacher and football coach, according to his website.
Walz will officially be introduced as Harris’ running mate at a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
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