U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has selected Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, to be her running mate, her campaign announced on Tuesday.
Walz, 60, is a former teacher who served 24 years in the Army National Guard and was elected to Congress six times before winning the governorship in 2018.
“One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle-class families run deep,” Harris stated. “We are going to build a great partnership.”
Harris will make her first public appearance with Walz at a campaign rally in Philadelphia later on Tuesday.
The Minnesota governor was the preferred pick of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, with endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the House Progressive Caucus.
“I hope very much that the vice president selects a running mate who will speak up and take on powerful corporate interests—and I think Tim Walz is somebody who could do that,” Sanders said on Friday.
After the Democrats won control of the Minnesota House and Senate in 2022, Walz signed into law a slew of progressive legislation, including the banning of non-compete clauses, the legalization of marijuana for adults and a law making Minnesota a refuge for transgender children seeking so-called “gender-affirming care.”
Walz has faced criticism for his handling of the protests and riots in Minneapolis after a policeman murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, with critics arguing that he should have deployed the National Guard sooner to quell the unrest.
‘Antisemitism in their own party’
In selecting Walz, Harris passed over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish day-school graduate who has been smeared by the anti-Israel left as “Genocide Josh” for his support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza after the terrorist murders, kidnappings and atrocities on Oct. 7.
Conservatives on Tuesday accused Harris of caving to anti-Israel activists by declining to pick the popular swing-state governor.
“I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of the antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party,” said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday before the decision was announced. “The far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American.”
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, slammed Walz for his endorsement of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of the most strident critics of Israel in the House and a vocal member of the progressive “Squad.”
“Of particular concern for the American Jewish community is Governor Walz’s embrace of the most vicious anti-Israel and antisemitic member of Congress, Ilhan Omar,” Brooks stated. “Walz has endorsed and supported this notorious ‘Squad’ member for years, championing her as a ‘progressive leader’ in Congress.”
Omar congratulated Walz on Tuesday for being selected as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
“Our North Star state governor has signed universal school meals, paid family and sick leave, marijuana legalization and protections for reproductive rights into law,” wrote Omar, posting a photo of her together with Walz.
Walz as a member of Congress was endorsed by AIPAC; appeared at the pro-Israel lobby group’s 2010 conference; voted in favor of aid to the Jewish state; and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in 2009.
‘We stand firmly with the State of Israel’
Mark Mellman, the chairman of the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, touted Walz’s “strong record of supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship” in a statement on Tuesday.
“As governor, he has been a steadfast supporter of the pro-Israel community in Minnesota,” Mellman stated. “Governor Walz has worked to increase Holocaust education in Minnesota and condemned pro-Hamas protests that excluded Jewish students from campus spaces.”
Speaking at a synagogue on Oct. 10, Walz described the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel as “terrorism and barbarism” and added that “here in the state of Minnesota, we stand firmly with the State of Israel and the righteousness of the cause.”
In June, he condemned antisemitic protests on college campuses at a Jewish Community Relations Council event.
“We saw your children feeling like they couldn’t be on campuses in Minnesota,” Walz said. “And that not only breaks my heart, it is wrong.”
Walz called on Hamas to release its hostages and added that failure to recognize the State of Israel is antisemitic.
But Walz has also courted the “uncommitted” campaign of Democratic primary voters who refused to re-nominate U.S. President Joe Biden over his support for the Jewish state and its military actions in Gaza since Oct. 7.
“These are voters that are deeply concerned, as we all are,” Walz told CNN. “The situation in Gaza is intolerable. And I think trying to find a solution, a lasting two-state solution—certainly the president’s move towards humanitarian aid and asking us to get to a ceasefire, that’s what they’re asking to be heard.”
He added: “We start bringing these folks back in, we listen to what they’re saying—that’s a healthy thing that’s happening here. We’ll get these folks back, I think take them seriously; their message is clear that they think this is an intolerable situation and that we can do more.”