- He's going to be the Vice President of the United States.
Until recently, Tim Walz was a nobody outside of Minnesota. However, US presidential candidate Kamala Harris has chosen the governor of this Midwestern state as her running mate for the vice presidency. The 60-year-old former National Guardsman, teacher, football coach, and legislator owes his meteoric rise, in part, to a catchphrase he has successfully introduced into his campaign against Donald Trump: "weird".
The term, which means "strange" or "peculiar", is applied by Walz to both Trump and his vice-presidential candidate, J.D. Vance. While not as derogatory as Trump's constant insults, it paints the Republican rivals as figures with eccentric and unrealistic views, making them laughing stocks.
Walz coined "weird" as the go-to description for Trump
Walz set the precedent, and since then, "weird" has become the label that Harris and other representatives of her party constantly apply to Trump and Vance. With this catchy attribute, Walz has demonstrated his valuable ability for the Harris campaign to express himself simply and effectively in words that resonate with voters without a college education.
As a white older man, Walz is intended to be the complement to Harris, who could become the first woman, Black person, and person of Asian descent to hold the presidency in U.S. history. By choosing the governor of Minnesota, Harris has made a strategic choice to expand the appeal of her campaign beyond the core Democratic base.
Walz is expected to help Harris convince voter groups where Democrats are often perceived as aloof and elitist. As a representative of the Midwest, he is also expected to help win potentially decisive "swing states" in his region for the election.
While Minnesota itself is not among the states where Democrats currently fear a loss in the November election, Harris is betting that Walz can appeal to many voters in other Midwestern states like Wisconsin and Michigan, which are among the closest swing states.
Walz's varied life story, as a father of two, shows him to be a man with diverse experiences who is anything but aloof. He grew up in a small town in the rural, Midwestern state of Nebraska. His father was a school administrator and died of cancer when Walz was 19.
From National Guard to teaching to politics
Walz joined the National Guard at 17 and was deployed to various locations, including the Arctic, during his 24-year career. In 1989, he graduated with a degree in social sciences from a university in Nebraska. As a teacher, he worked in an indigenous reservation in South Dakota and, through a program at Harvard University, in China. He met his wife Gwen in his home state of Nebraska, and they married in 1994 and later moved to her home state of Minnesota, where they both taught at the same high school and he also coached football.
Only switched to politics mid-career: Walz was elected to the House of Representatives in Washington in 2006 and became Governor of Minnesota in 2018. His political profile combines a down-to-earth demeanor and clear language with left-leaning policies.
Shared values to connect Harris and Walz
As governor, he advocated for free school meals, protecting the right to abortion, strengthening voting rights, expanding renewable energy, tax cuts for the middle class, and paid leave expansion for Minnesota workers.
His stance on guns has evolved over the years. "I'm a veteran, a hunter, and a gun owner. But I'm also a father. And for many years, I was a teacher," he wrote on the X platform in late July. Gun laws, he said, are not a threat to his rights. "It's about protecting our children."
"We share the same values. We believe we can win the Midwest," Walz said about Harris two weeks ago. After being recruited by her as her running mate on Tuesday, he expressed excitement: "It feels a bit like the first day of school," he admitted on the X platform – and promptly added, "Let's get this done, people!"
Walz's use of the term "weird" to describe Trump and Vance during the US election campaign has been widely adopted by Harris and other Democratic representatives, highlighting their contrasting views with the Republican duo. With his diverse experiences and down-to-earth demeanor, Walz is expected to help broaden the appeal of Harris' campaign in the Midwest and win over voters in key swing states.
