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(File photo) Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz (left) greets U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as she arrives at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in St. Paul, Minnesota, March 14, 2024. According to U.S. media reports, Harris chose Waltz as her running mate on August 6, 2024, and the vice president is preparing to compete against Republican Donald Trump in the U.S. election in November. (Photo credit: STEPHEN MATUREN / AFP)
WASHINGTON, United States — Kamala Harris said Tuesday she was “proud” to choose Tim Waltz as her running mate, selecting the Minnesota governor with a blue-collar background as the partner most likely to boost her historic and difficult presidential campaign.
Waltz had been on the list of vice presidential candidates along with a string of other Democratic figures seen as broadening Harris’ appeal as she runs for the presidential nomination against Donald Trump.
Harris’ goal is to make history by becoming the first female president of the United States. She is already the first female vice president, and the first black and South Asian vice president, a pioneer. There is not much time left until Election Day on November 5.
She posted on X: “I am proud to announce that I have asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate.”
“He has contributed to working families like his as a governor, coach, teacher and veteran. We are thrilled to have him join our team.”
The expectation had been that Harris would pick a white person to balance the vote and help win over working-class, white male voters, the group that powered Trump’s 2016 victory.
Walz fits that description: He is a 60-year-old Midwesterner with an approachable manner, decades of military experience and a rural perspective, a Democrat who owns guns and tweets about hunting.
The former teacher and school sports coach won a U.S. House seat from a Republican district in a state far removed from California, Harris’s home state or the coastal elites of the East Coast.
At the same time, Waltz will appeal to the left to support popular Democratic policies, including legalizing marijuana, strengthening worker protections, guaranteeing abortion rights and supporting stricter gun restrictions.
The Trump campaign immediately labeled the Minnesota native a “dangerous liberal extremist” who was trying to impose California values on the nation.
But former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who worked closely with him in Congress, told MSNBC: “It’s just untrue to characterize him as a leftist.”
Waltz “is centrist. He’s the heartland of the Democratic Party in America.”
Walz called his naming the “honor of a lifetime” and joked that it felt like the “first day of school.”
Battlefield swing
He and Harris will immediately dive into the campaign trail, with five days of intensive campaigning starting on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, the largest battleground state.
Harris, who has just won the official nomination of the Democratic Party, will go to Chicago to attend the National Convention in two weeks and take full control of the Democratic Party.
It’s been a remarkable journey for Harris, who decided to run after President Joe Biden, 81, dropped out of the race last month amid concerns about his mental acuity.
In just two weeks of campaigning, the 59-year-old former prosecutor and senator has broken fundraising records, drawn huge crowds and dominated social media, erasing Trump’s growing lead over Biden in the polls.
The latest presidential poll released Monday by the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points nationally (46 to 43), compared with Trump’s 4-point lead over Biden in January.
In the swing states that decide the U.S. Electoral College race, Harris’s support is neck and neck with Trump, who shocked the world with his victory in the 2016 presidential election but was defeated by Biden in 2020.
The first major test
Choosing a running mate is seen as the first major test for Harris in her bid to become the nation’s top executive.
Now, Harris and Waltz will face the first hurdle in the ground battle as they travel across the country this week from Philadelphia to Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada. Tropical Storm Debbie forced the postponement of the Georgia race, and according to media reports, the North Carolina race was also postponed.
Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, was part of the “blue wall” that Biden won in 2020. That’s the main reason many expect Harris to pick the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro.
Also on the vice presidential ticket are former astronaut and current U.S. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
Trump, who has surged politically since surviving an assassination attempt at a rally last month, used the Republican National Convention to project an image of himself as energetic and Biden as frail by comparison.
But with Biden’s dramatic exit and Harris’s rapid rise, he is busy recalibrating.
At a rally in Georgia on Saturday, Trump called Harris a “Marxist” who would cause an “economic collapse.”
Three days earlier, he shocked many by telling a group of black journalists that Harris “became black” out of political expediency.
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