Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, a selection Democrats hope will boost the ticket's chances among white rural voters in must-win swing states.
Sources familiar with Harris' thinking confirmed the decision with NBC News and other media outlets on Tuesday morning. The Harris campaign later announced her choice in a text to supporters:
I’m pleased to share that I’ve made my decision: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate. Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. I know that he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.
Harris made the final decision on Tuesday morning, hours ahead of a scheduled campaign rally in Philadelphia with her new running mate set to kick off around 5 p.m. ET, according to NBC News.
Harris' choice of Walz as her running mate could broaden the ticket's appeal: Harris as a Black, Asian woman from California with experience as a prosecutor, and Walz as a white, folksy Midwesterner with a record of enacting progressive policies.
Democrats are hoping that Walz’s personal story and his progressive credentials can help the ticket win over voters in rural areas.
Walz, picked from a formidable pool of candidates, is by no means a national figure in the Democratic Party. But he quickly rose to the top of Harris’ VP shortlist in recent weeks as he stumped for the de facto Democratic nominee on cable news, earning wide praise for his sharp criticism of the Donald Trump-JD Vance agenda. His labeling of Republicans as “weird” also caught on fast — and has appeared to strike a nerve among some Republicans.
Although Minnesota is not considered a battleground state, Democrats are hoping that Walz’s personal story and his progressive credentials can help the ticket win over voters in rural areas who have been more drawn to the GOP in recent elections.
Walz's allies have touted his background and his resume as a boon to the Harris ticket. A Nebraska native, the twice-elected Minnesota governor is a military veteran and a former schoolteacher and high school football coach. He represented a traditionally red-leaning district in Minnesota in the U.S. House for 12 years before being elected governor in 2019.
Since 2022, when Democrats won control of the state Legislature, Walz has passed billions in funding for schools, including free school lunches; shored up abortion rights; secured stricter gun violence prevention laws; expanded up legal protections for transgender youth; and restored voting rights for formerly incarcerated people.
Asked recently whether his progressive record could expose the Democratic ticket to more attacks, Walz suggested he wasn't bothered by labels.
"The fact of the matter is, where you see the policies that Vice President Harris was a part of making, Democratic governors across the country executed those policies, and quality of life is higher, the economies are better, all of those things," he said. "If that's what they want to label me, I'm more than happy to take the label."