PHILADELPHIA — Democrat Gov. Tim Walz is not a household name outside his home state of Minnesota.
So, in the hours after Vice President Harris named the former longtime congressman and two-term governor as her running mate on the Democratic Party's 2024 ticket, the Harris campaign instantly began working to showcase Walz.
His biography was blasted out on social media platforms, including Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter, and the Harris campaign spotlighted the governor in a new video.
And the vice president and Walz on Tuesday evening, in Pennsylvania's largest city, will kick off a jam-packed campaign swing through the key battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of their 2024 election matchup against former President Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
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The introduction to Walz is needed because 7 in 10 Americans didn't know enough about the governor to form an opinion, according to a new poll by Marist College for NPR and "PBS NewsHour."
As she boarded Air Force Two on her way to Philadelphia, Harris said Walz "is going to make a great vice president" when asked why she chose him over some of the other front-runners in the veepstakes: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. Shapiro is expected to address the crowd at the rally.
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The Harris campaign on Tuesday afternoon said it hauled in more than $10 million from grassroots supporters in the hours after the vice president announced her running mate, which it said was "one of the campaign's best fundraising days this cycle."
The naming of the 60-year-old Walz was not a shocker as his name was instantly thought to be in contention in the 16 days since Harris succeeded President Biden as the party's standard-bearer.
Walz, a former high school teacher and coach who spent nearly a quarter-century in the National Guard, was elected to the House in 2006 and re-elected five times. He represented Minnesota's 1st Congressional District, a mostly rural district covering the southern part of the state.
Having the plainspoken Walz on the national ticket not only helps Harris in Minnesota – a state that leans blue in presidential elections that the Trump campaign has been aiming to flip this year – it also benefits the vice president in the two neighboring Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan.
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The governor will also be able to showcase a slew of progressive policy victories in Minnesota, including protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana, and restricting gun access to curb shootings. And the naming of Walz over more moderate Democrats such as Shapiro and Kelly will please the progressive wing of the party.
"As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his," Harris said in announcing her choice.
Harris said "one of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep."
"It’s personal," she said. "He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, spending summers working on his family’s farm. His father died of cancer when he was 19, and his family relied on Social Security survivor benefit checks to make ends meet. At 17, he enlisted in the National Guard, serving for 24 years. He used his GI Bill benefits to go to college and become a teacher."
It was a very different take from the Trump campaign, which instantly targeted Walz.
"Kamala Harris just doubled down on her radical vision for America for tapping another left-wing extremist as her VP nominee," the moderator in a new Trump campaign video charged. "Tim Walz will be a rubber stamp for Kamala's dangerous liberal agenda."
And Vance, who was in Philadelphia hours before the Democrat ticket arrived, called Walz’s record as governor "a joke" and said he was "one of the most far-left radicals in the entire United States government at any level."
Vance is tailing Harris and Walz with small-scale events this week as they hold rallies in key swing states.
