Meet Tim Walz, Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate

The suspense is over. After two weeks of speculation about who the Democratic vice-presidential nominee will be, Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota. The sixty-year-old Walz is, in many ways, a surprise choice. He wasn’t one of the names that most pundits offered up when Harris first became the presumptive Democratic nominee two weeks ago. He moved onto the vice-presidential list in part because his dismissal of Donald Trump and JD Vance as “weird” caught fire on social media. In selecting Walz, Harris apparently valued her personal “vibe” with him along with the sense that he could help her appeal to voters across the upper Midwest.

Walz was born and raised in Nebraska and moved to Minnesota after college. He is the first nominee on the Democratic ticket since Jimmy Carter who has not attended law school. Walz holds the distinction of being the highest ranked enlisted soldier ever to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. He would be the highest ranked enlisted soldier to hold national office should he become vice president. (James Buchanan was the last and only president to have been an enlisted soldier. He was a private in the Pennsylvania militia.) Should Walz become vice president, he would also be the first person born in Nebraska to be elected to national office. (Gerald R. Ford was born in Omaha but was appointed rather than elected vice president.) Walz would be the third vice president from Minnesota, with Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale preceding him. Walz would also be the first person to hold national office to have the letter “z” in his last name. 

The Basics

 Name: Timothy James Walz 

 Date of Birth: April 6, 1964

 Birthplace: West Point, Nebraska 

 Religion: Lutheran

 Political Party: Democratic Party 

 Marital Status: Married to Gwen Whipple (1994 - present) 

 Children: Hope Walz (b. 2001) and Gus Walz (b. 2006) 

 Alma Mater: Chadron State College, B.S. in social science education, 1989; Minnesota State University, M.S. in educational leadership, 2001.

 Twitter Handle: @GovTimWalz; @Tim_Walz

 Instagram Handle: @MNGovernor;  @TimWalz

Harris’s Announcement

News of Walz’s selection broke yesterday morning. Harris made the news official in the most twenty-first century way possible, with posts on social media. In her Instagram post, she stressed that “one of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle-class families run deep.”

Harris also used social media to share the moment she asked Walz to be her running mate. Walz, who was at the governor’s residence in St. Paul, was wearing a black t-shirt, sneakers, and a camouflage baseball cap. Not quite your standard political dress.

By early afternoon, the Harris-Walz campaign had released a feel-good video introducing Walz to American voters. The video begins with Walz recounting his roots in small-town Nebraska where he learned the value of “respect, compromise, service to country.” Midway through the video, he pivots to the issues by saying “enough about me. Let’s talk about you, because that’s what this election is about.” He wants to make “sure families cannot just get by, but get ahead.” Foreign policy doesn’t get a mention in the ninety-second video.

Walz began his day in St. Paul, but by early evening he was in Philadelphia. There Harris introduced him to a raucous rally of Democrats at the first stop of a tour of five battleground states. Among the speakers in the run-up to Walz’s introduction was Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who had been seen as the favorite to be tapped as Harris’s running mate. Shapiro gave a fiery speech in favor of the Harris-Walz ticket. Harris introduced Walz by noting, among other things, that he is a life-long hunter who “was known as one of Capitol Hill’s best marksmen.” (The Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus named Walz a “Top Gun” several times when he was a member of Congress. He loves to hunt pheasants.)

Walz used his speech to attack both Trump and JD Vance. He criticized the former president for not knowing “the first thing about service. He doesn’t have time for it because he’s too busy serving himself.” As for his Republican rival, he said: “Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” adding “Come on—that’s not what Middle America is!” The vice-presidential debate, should it take place, will likely focus more on personality than on policy.

Walz’s Story

Walz was born in West Point, Nebraska. It’s a town of roughly 3,500 people about seventy miles northwest of Omaha. He grew up in Valentine, Nebraska. It’s even smaller than West Point, with just 2,700 people. It sits just south of the border with South Dakota, some 300 miles northwest of Omaha. When Walz was in high school, his father was diagnosed with lung cancer. The family moved one hundred miles east to Butte, Nebraska, a town of just four hundred people, to be closer to family. Like many politicians from small-town America, Walz says his rural origins have shaped his outlook on life: “A town that small had services like that and had a public school with a government teacher that inspired me to be sitting where I’m at today. Those are real stories in small towns.”

Walz graduated from Butte High School in 1982. At the urging of his father, a Korean War-era veteran, Walz enlisted in the National Guard. He spent the next twenty-four years as a guardsman. He rose in the ranks to become a command sergeant major, one of the most senior ranks an enlisted soldier can achieve, although he retired in 2005 as a master sergeant because he did not complete all the coursework needed for his promotion. He was deployed overseas several times but never saw combat. Walz has downplayed his service in the National Guard, saying: “There are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that.” Waltz’s hearing was damaged by repeated exposure to the firing of howitzers, requiring surgery in 2005 to improve his hearing.  

Walz used his GI benefits to attend Chadron State College in Nebraska. Before he enrolled, he held a variety of jobs, including being a temporary teacher on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The experience convinced him that he wanted to be a teacher, like his father. The elder Walz died in 1984, leaving his family with substantial medical debt that his family struggled to repay, a memory that hasn’t left the younger Walz.

Walz graduated from Chadron State in 1989 with a teaching degree. He then spent a year in China teaching high school students as part of one the first official efforts to allow Americans to teach in China. He still speaks some Mandarin. 

After returning to the United States, Walz took a teaching job in Alliance, Nebraska, which is four hundred miles west of Omaha, and a short drive to the Wyoming border. In Alliance, Walz met Gwen Whipple. She taught in the classroom next to hers. She says she was initially irritated that his booming voice carried into her classroom. Their first date was one that anyone who has lived in small-town America can relate to. They saw the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down and then had dinner at Hardee’s. It was the only restaurant in Alliance that wasn’t a bar. 

The couple married in 1994. He says that “the best thing that happened to me was meeting and marrying Gwen. Without a doubt, I outkicked my coverage (to use a football term)!” The couple struggled with infertility. Gwen eventually delivered two children, Hope and Gus, with the help of IVF treatments. 

Walz’s teaching career almost ended in 1995. He was arrested in Alliance for driving ninety-five miles per hour in a fifty-five mile per hour zone. He failed a field sobriety test and was charged with driving under the influence. He subsequently pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of reckless driving. Walz no longer drinks alcohol. His beverage of choice now is Diet Mountain Dew.

In 1996, the Walz’s moved to Gwen’s hometown, Mankato, Minnesota, where they both took jobs teaching at Mankato West High School. He taught geography and, for a while, was the linebackers coach and then defensive coordinator for the school’s football team. He was part of a turnaround that turned a team that had been winless into state champions in just three years. Walz also served as the faculty advisor for Mankato West High School’s gay-straight alliance club. 

Walz launched his political career in 2006, running for Minnesota’s first congressional district seat. He beat the Republican incumbent, becoming just the second Democrat in more than a century to represent the largely rural and agricultural district. He earned plaudits for his bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. He was reelected to Congress five times. He served on the Agriculture Committee, Armed Services, Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Veterans Affairs committees.

In 2018, Walz opted to run for governor after the incumbent, a Democrat, opted not to run for a third term. Walz defeated his Republican opponent by eleven percentage points. He ran for reelection in 2022, winning by just under eight percentage points.

Walz and Trump

Walz, like most Democrats, dislikes Trump and his brand of politics. Walz went viral late last month after he called Trump and Vance “really weird” during an appearance on Morning Joe. 

The Trump campaign’s spokesperson reacted to the news that Walz had been selected as Harris’s vice president by calling him a “dangerously, liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.” Trump, as is his wont, went further, saying that Walz’s election “would “unleash hell on earth.” If Walz heard the gibes, they didn’t faze him. He didn’t pull any punches during his appearance yesterday in Philadelphia. Among other things, he said that “violent crime was up under Donald Trump …and that’s not even counting the crimes he committed.” For good measure, he said of Trump and Vance: “You feel it. These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell.”

Walz’s Foreign Policy Views

In his time in Congress and as governor, Walz has focused primarily on domestic issues and veterans’ affairs. He became the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and he played a pivotal role in helping pass legislation in 2015 designed to curtail suicides by U.S. veterans. 

During his time in Congress, Walz largely stuck with the Democratic mainstream on foreign policy issues. When he was a first-term representative in 2007, he voted in favor of a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. The resolution failed. Walz later broke with his fellow Democrats and voted against cutting off funding for military operations in Iraq, arguing that “if the pullback of troops was either delayed or sped up based on politics, that that's dangerous."

During the Obama administration, Walz routinely supported U.S. aid for Israel. He was publicly skeptical of calls in 2013 to launch airstrikes against Syria in retaliation for the Bashir Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, though a resolution in favor of the action never came to a vote. Walz supported the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He likewise supported Barack Obama’s decision to reestablish diplomatic ties with Cuba, noting that it would create a new export market for Minnesota farmers.

Not surprisingly, Walz has not commented about foreign affairs much during this time as governor. In February 2022, he condemned Russia for its “unprovoked and unlawful attacks” on Ukraine and argued that “it’s time to unite, protect democracy, and work together to hold Russia accountable.” He has not retreated from that stance since. This past February, as the war hit the two-year mark, he visited the Ukrainian embassy “to reaffirm our ongoing commitment to Ukraine” and to declare that “Minnesota stands with the people of Ukraine as they fight to defend freedom and democracy.” 

Walz issued a similar denunciation last October of Hamas’s brutal surprise attack on Israel. He told a group of Jewish Minnesotans: “If you did not find moral clarity on Saturday morning, and you find yourself waiting to think about what you needed to say, you need to reevaluate where you’re at.” He has called for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, though he hasn’t specified the details of an acceptable deal. He continues to argue that “Israel’s right to defend itself is real.” He also argues that the United States needs to do more to help Palestinians because “the situation in Gaza is intolerable. The humanitarian crisis must be brought to an end.” Walz favors a two-solution to settle the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. 

As governor, Walz has made climate change a major issue. Last year, he persuaded the Minnesota state legislature to pass a law that requires Minnesota to get all its electricity from renewable resources by 2040. He also persuaded the state legislature to pass bills providing tax rebates for electric vehicles and making it easier to build renewable energy and transmission projects. Climate activists see Minnesota’s actions as a possible model for federal legislation. 

Walz has a mixed record on trade. While in Congress, he opposed most trade deals, including Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership. However, he voted in 2011 for a trade deal with South Korea. As governor, he has recognized, as most governors do, that exports are good for the state economy. As a result, he has spent time promoting Minnesota exports while also trying to attract foreign investment. Earlier this summer, he traveled to France and Canada to expand trade and investment ties. It’s unclear how Walz would reconcile his positions as a member of Congress with his actions as a governor should the Harris-Walz administration take office. 

More on Walz

Politico has “55 Things to Know About Tim Walz.” Among the more amusing anecdotes is his response to statements that he looks older than his sixty years: He says it’s because he “supervised the lunchroom for 20 years. You do not leave that job with a full head of hair. Trust me.”

The New York Times offered up nineteen facts about Walz. Among other pieces of trivia, the Times notes that Walz signed a bill naming a stretch of Highway 5 in Minnesota the “Prince Rogers Nelson Memorial Highway” after the acclaimed musician Prince. In an apt flourish, Walz signed the bill with a pen filled with purple ink, a tribute to Prince’s classic, “Purple Rain.” At the signing, Walz said: “I think we can lay to rest that this is the coolest bill signing we’ll ever do.” 

The New York Times’s Ezra Klein interviewed Walz last Friday. The two men covered many topics in their hour-long conversation. Foreign policy didn’t come up. Among other things, Walz said that his first priority for a Harris administration would be “paid family and medical leave. We’re the last nation on earth basically to not do this. It is so foundational to just basic decency and financial well-being. And I think that would start to change both finances, attitude — strengthen the family.”

Marci Lindsay and Shelby Sires assisted in the preparation of this post.