United States Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her 2024 presidential running mate.
Other candidates who were in the running for the priced VP ticket include Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
Walz, a military veteran, former public school teacher, and football coach served in the House for 12 years before he was elected governor in 2018 and re-elected in 2022.
The Nebraska native will help the Harris campaign win the white working-class and rural voters who have drifted away from the Democratic Party in recent years.
As governor, Walz has signed laws protecting abortion rights, expanding paid family leave, legalizing recreational marijuana, banning most noncompete agreements, restricting gun access, providing universal school meals for students, and capping the price of insulin in Minnesota.
In a late July interview, Walzt referred to Republican presidential nominees Donald Trump and Ohio Senator JD Vance as “weird dudes” a phrase that became very popular in the Harris campaign.
Timothy James Walz a short biography
- Born 6 April 1964 in West Point, Nebraska, USA
- His father James Fenrick Walz was a teacher and his mother Darlene Rose Reinman a homemaker
- Walz is of German, Swedish, Luxembourgish, and Irish descent
- He graduated from Butte High School in 1982
- Walz grew up in Valentine, Nebraska
- He served in the Army National Guard for 24 years after enlisting in 1981 aged 17.
- Walz graduated with a BSc in Social Science Education from the Cadron State College in 1989
- He was a teacher at Foshan No 1 High School in Guangdong, China for 1 year
- Walz took a teaching and coaching job in Alliance a ton of ten thousand in western Nebraska
- He married fellow teacher Gwen Whippie in 1994
- Geography Teacher and Football Coach at Mankato West High School
- Walz earned an MSc in Educational Leadership from the Minnesota State University in 2001
- U.S. House of Representatives for Minnesota’s 1st congressional district (2006- 2018)
- Governor of Minnesota (2019 – present)
