ST PAUL, Minn. — After serving as Minnesota’s top official through the turbulence of a global pandemic and civil unrest, among other recent tribulations, many Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, believe Gov. Tim Walz has shown he has what it takes to join in – and win – the bid for the White House this November.
“You know, I’m not interviewing for anything; I just am who I am and put it out there,” Walz said in a recent press conference when asked about being on VP Harris’ shortlist as running mate.
But before Walz held the state’s highest office, he lived in a small town in northern Nebraska, where he elected to join the Army National Guard at the age of 17. He served in the Guard for 24 years, all while embarking on a teaching career that would bring him to Minnesota in 1996, where he’d meet his future wife and fellow teacher, Gwen.
“I will just say this: I don’t know if every high school geography teacher expects to be in this position at some point.”
After 10 years of teaching geography and coaching football at Mankato West High School, Walz embarked on his first campaign in 2006, vying for a seat in Congress through southern Minnesota's Republican-leaning First Congressional District.
That year, he went on to unseat longtime incumbent Gil Gutknecht, spending the next 12 years representing Minnesota on the national stage.
In 2018, Walz launched his first bid for governor with the theme of "One Minnesota," and made history by picking State Rep. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation, as his running mate. After a contentious election season, Walz would ultimately defeat Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson in his pursuit of the office.
In his first months as governor, Walz, First Lady Gwen and their children, Gus and Hope, moved to Saint Paul, where Walz set about leading the charge for historic spending on education, childcare and housing.
“I think Minnesotans and communities, mayors — like [Bloomington] Mayor [Tim] Busse — legislators ... have put Minnesota on the map for policies that are improving people’s lives. And I recognize I’m being looked at because of the body of work that includes a whole lot of people,” he said.
During the COVID pandemic, he aggressively pursued testing and vaccines but took heat for using executive orders to close schools and businesses. And, after George Floyd's murder, Walz drew criticism for delays in activating the National Guard.
“When you’re serving in the moment on these things, on anything, I think you go back and look. Decisions were made in a situation that is what it is, and I simply believe that we tried to do the best we can in each of those.”
With his re-election in 2022, Walz defeated Dr. Scott Jensen and then took advantage of the state’s Democratic trifecta – i.e. DFL-led executive and legislative branches – to sign bills strengthening abortion rights, tightening access to guns, banning conversion therapy, restoring voting rights to felons, legalizing cannabis and providing universal free school meals … to name a few.
“… People will make their decisions," he said. "I have a record in Minnesota that’s extensive, and I think people take a look at that, they will make their decision on what they think is best for ‘em.”
Before Democrats knew with certainty they'd look toward a Harris-Walz ticket, the governor had this to say about what he wanted to see in Harris' vice presidential running mate, whoever that may be:
“I want to see that person, first and foremost, do what is compatible with whatever the vice president wants,” Walz said. “Whatever she wants is it, in this moment. And just to be candid, to put a ticket together that wins in November and continues to implement the policies that we’ve seen out of this administration — investing in children, taking climate change seriously, working as true partners with states — because I’ve seen what happens when you have a president who doesn’t value partnerships and one who does.”
When asked about Trump’s latest actions on the campaign trail, Walz told reporters, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”
Five things to know about Tim Walz
It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz. 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.
In his first race for Congress, Walz upset a Republican incumbent. That was in 2006, when he won in a largely rural, southern Minnesota congressional district against six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht. Walz capitalized on voter anger with then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
During six terms in the U.S. House, Walz championed veterans' issues.
He’s also shown a down-to-earth side, partly through social media video posts with his daughter, Hope. One last fall showed them trying a Minnesota State Fair ride, “The Slingshot,” after they bantered about fair food and her being a vegetarian.
While Walz isn't from one of the crucial “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where both sides believe they need to win, he's right next door. He also could ensure that Minnesota stays in the hands of Democrats.
That's important because former President Donald Trump has portrayed Minnesota as being in play this year, even though the state hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. A GOP presidential candidate hasn't carried the state since President Richard Nixon's landslide in 1972, but Trump has already campaigned there.
When Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decided not to seek a third term in 2018, Walz campaigned and won the office on a “One Minnesota” theme.
Walz also speaks comfortably about issues that matter to voters in the Rust Belt. He's been a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers' rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.
In his first term as governor, Walz faced a Legislature split between a Democratic-led House and a Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, health care and roads. But he and lawmakers brokered compromises that made the state's divided government still seem productive.
Bipartisan cooperation became tougher during his second year as he used the governor's emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools. Republicans pushed back and forced out some agency heads. Republicans also remain critical of Walz over what they see as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Things got easier for Walz in his second term, after he defeated Republican Scott Jensen, a physician known nationally as a vaccine skeptic. Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, clearing the way for a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus.
Walz and lawmakers eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.
Rejecting Republican pleas that the state budget surplus be used to cut taxes, Democrats funded free school meals for children, free tuition at public colleges for students in families earning under $80,000 a year, a paid family and medical leave program and health insurance coverage regardless of a person's immigration status.
Walz called Republican nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance “just weird” in an MSNBC interview last month and the Democratic Governors Association — which Walz chairs — amplified the point in a post on X. Walz later reiterated the characterization on CNN, citing Trump’s repeated mentions of the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.
The word quickly morphed into a theme for Harris and other Democrats, and has a chance to be a watchword of the undoubtably weird 2024 election season.