Harris picks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, AP sources say

Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states, AP sources say.

She will introduce Walz at a rally Tuesday evening in Philadelphia.

The 60-year-old Democrat rose to the forefront with a series of plain-spoken television appearances in the days after President Joe Biden decided not to seek a second term. He has made his state a bastion of liberal policy and, this year, one of the few states to protect fans buying tickets online for Taylor Swift concerts and other live events.

Born in West Point, Nebraska, a community of about 3,500 people northwest of Omaha, Walz joined the Army National Guard and became a teacher in Nebraska.

He and his wife moved to Mankato in southern Minnesota in the 1990s. That’s where he taught social studies and coached football at Mankato West High School, including for the 1999 team that won the first of the school’s four state championships. He still points to his union membership there.

Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring from a field artillery battalion in 2005 as a command sergeant major, one of the military’s highest enlisted ranks.

A team of lawyers and political operatives led by former attorney general Eric Holder pored over documents and conducted interviews with potential vice presidential selections.

And Harris herself met with her three finalists on Sunday. She mulled the decision over Monday with top aides at the vice president’s residence in Washington and finalized it Tuesday morning.

Walz emerged as the choice.

Minnesota Democratic strategist Abu Amara says Walz will be a good surrogate for Harris across the upper Midwest, because he represented a rural U.S. House district but won statewide in a state with large metropolitan and suburban areas.

“He’s not trying to speak in poetry. He speaks in practicality,” Amara said. “That’s a level of accessibility for so many voters.”

“He has the ability to connect with rural, suburban and urban voters,” he said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it the “most left-wing ticket in American history” and accused Walz of not doing enough to protect Minnesota during the 2020 protests over the killing of George Floyd.

He said “Walz sat by and let Minneapolis burn.”