Minnesota Governor Tim Walz goes from "dark horse" to the "momentum candidate" as Kamala Harris closes in on making her 2024 choice for vice president

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (CBS)

 

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is riding a wave of momentum that could make him the favorite to become Kamala Harris' choice as vice president, according to a Washington Post political analyst. Harris is expected to announce her pick by tomorrow and then head on the road with her choice for a string of rallies.

Under the headline "'Kamala Harris' 'dark horse' VP candidate has become her 'momentum candidate': analyst," Raw Story's Leigh Tauss reports:

The shortlist of Democrats vying to serve as Kamala Harris’ running mate is narrowing down to a few strong contenders, but one unlikely lawmaker seems to be gaining steam, according to a Washington Post analyst.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is “the momentum candidate” according to an analysis from senior political reporter Aaron Blake.

“Nobody’s stock has risen over the past week as much as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was previously thought to be something of a dark horse for the job,” Blake writes. “Walz has pushed himself into the conversation with a barrage of media appearances in which he’s played up his rural roots and everyman appeal.”

He was one of the first to characterize the Republican ticket as “weird,” a notion that has ballooned into a now dominating talking point among critics.

The remaining finalists for the vice presidential nomination includes swing-state leaders, such as Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Also still in the running is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been busy indulging a dense media circuit where he’s often on the top of his game.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear are two other names that could surge toward the front of the pack, Tauss writes:

“While Walz is the hot new thing, Buttigieg has been doing this kind of thing for years — even going on Fox News to joust with its hosts,” Blake writes.

Rounding out the pack is Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who has emerged as an “anti-Vance’ Blake writes, calling out Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, as “phony.”

“To the extent the name of the game is to create a contrast in running mates, Beshear has positioned himself as that,” Blake writes.

The Independent has more background on Walz, under the headline "Who is Tim Walz, the governor who could be Harris’s vice-presidential pick? The Minnesota governor has delivered progressive policies in his state and has a history of swaying Republican districts":

Minnesota’s governor captured the internet’s attention and swayed Democrats’ messaging by succinctly summing up how he views Republicans: they’re weird.

Clips of Tim Walz have spread widely, cementing him as a national voice for Kamala Harris’s campaign – and a potential pick to run alongside her as vice-president.

It’s not just the “weird” of it all: he’s been able to run through a list of what Democrats want, and what he’s done as governor during a banner time for Democrats in his state, that articulates to voters what they would be voting for, not just the danger of what they’re voting against. He speaks plainly and pragmatically, showing the commonsense policies his party stands for.

Walz, 60, was born and raised in small-town Nebraska. He became a teacher, first in China, then in Nebraska and finally in Mankato, Minnesota, where he taught geography and coached the high school football team. He was the faculty adviser for the school’s first gay-straight alliance chapter in 1999, long before Democrats nationally stood for gay rights. He also served in the army national guard for 24 years, enlisting at age 17, a role that took him around the country and on a deployment to Europe. And like J.D. Vance, Walz has a penchant for Diet Mountain Dew.

He had a whole life before politics.

“Frankly, a lot of politicians are just not normal people,” said David Hogg, a gun-control advocate and a Walz fan. “They just don’t know how to talk to normal people.”

He comes across as what he is: a straight-talking teacher, America’s youth football coach. He’s “right out of central casting as the way you think a Minnesota governor would be like,” said Michael Brodkorb, the former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican party.

 

Walz first ran for office in 2006 in a Republican-leaning congressional district, knocking off the incumbent in an upset. He kept the district until 2016, dispatching Republicans over and over. In 2018, he ran for governor and won, then defended the seat successfully in 2022.

 

He’s now the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, a perch that has given him a national profile in the past year as he has stumped first for Biden and now Harris. His appearances in recent weeks have taken off, putting his name on the VP shortlist and his tone center stage for Democrats.

 

In Minnesota, Democrats secured a narrow government trifecta in 2022, taking both chambers of the legislature and the governorship, and Walz and his colleagues in the legislature got to work, delivering a laundry-list of progressive policy wins such as free school meals, abortion protections, gun restrictions and legal marijuana.

If Democrats want to see what their party governing would look like, Minnesota is the example. But maybe the policies would be too liberal for the national stage, one TV interviewer posed to Walz.

“What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn and women are making their own healthcare decisions,” Walz said jokingly.

Hogg pointed to a speech Walz gave when Trump came to Minnesota last week, in which Walz was dressed down – like a midwestern dad – in a camo hat and a T-shirt, as an example of how he’s down-to-earth. The outfit caught attention online for not looking like a politician’s attempt to look like a regular person, but just like Walz’s regular clothes. “He might run for Vice President or he might clean the garage. It’s the weekend, anything can happen,” one tweet quipped.

“Tim’s just a freaking down-home guy,” said Tim Ryan, a former Democratic US representative from Ohio who worked with Walz in Congress and worked out alongside him in the House gym.

Ryan called to mind a recent clip in which Walz mentioned that Minnesota ranked in the top three for happiest states in the nation. “Isn’t that really the goal here? For some joy? When he mentioned that I was like, dang man, that’s really good. That’s really good, because it gets us out of the political space and into the human-being space.”