International Courant
PHILADELPHIA — Democrat Gov. Tim Walz is just not a family identify outdoors his residence state of Minnesota.
So, within the hours after Vice President Harris named the previous longtime congressman and two-term governor as her working mate on the Democratic Get together’s 2024 ticket, the Harris marketing campaign immediately started working to showcase Walz.
His biography was blasted out on social media platforms, together with Instagram and X, previously generally known as Twitter, and the Harris marketing campaign spotlighted the governor in a brand new video.
And the vice chairman and Walz on Tuesday night, in Pennsylvania’s largest metropolis, will kick off a jam-packed marketing campaign swing by means of the important thing battleground states that may possible decide the end result of their 2024 election matchup towards former President Trump and his working mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS NAMES MINNESOTA GOV TIM WALZ AS HER RUNNING MATE
This picture exhibits the scoreboard at Liacouras Middle, the venue for Vice President Harris’ first rally together with her working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in Philadelphia on Aug. 6, 2024. (Fox Information/Paul Steinhauser)
The introduction to Walz is required as a result of 7 in 10 Individuals did not know sufficient in regards to the governor to kind an opinion, in line with a brand new ballot by Marist Faculty for NPR and “PBS NewsHour.”
As she boarded Air Pressure Two on her solution to Philadelphia, Harris mentioned Walz “goes to make an amazing vice chairman” when requested why she selected him over among the different front-runners within the veepstakes: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. Shapiro is anticipated to handle the gang on the rally.
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The Harris marketing campaign on Tuesday afternoon mentioned it hauled in additional than $10 million from grassroots supporters within the hours after the vice chairman introduced her working mate, which it mentioned was “one of many marketing campaign’s greatest fundraising days this cycle.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz/File)
The naming of the 60-year-old Walz was not a shocker as his identify was immediately regarded as in competition within the 16 days since Harris succeeded President Biden because the get together’s standard-bearer.
Walz, a former highschool instructor and coach who spent practically a quarter-century within the Nationwide Guard, was elected to the Home in 2006 and re-elected 5 occasions. He represented Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, a largely rural district masking the southern a part of the state.
Having the plainspoken Walz on the nationwide ticket not solely helps Harris in Minnesota – a state that leans blue in presidential elections that the Trump marketing campaign has been aiming to flip this 12 months – it additionally advantages the vice chairman within the two neighboring Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan.
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The governor may even be capable to showcase a slew of progressive coverage victories in Minnesota, together with defending abortion rights, legalizing leisure marijuana, and proscribing gun entry to curb shootings. And the naming of Walz over extra average Democrats reminiscent of Shapiro and Kelly will please the progressive wing of the get together.
“As a governor, a coach, a instructor and a veteran, he is delivered for working households like his,” Harris mentioned in asserting her alternative.
Vice President Harris boards Air Pressure Two at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Aug. 6, 2024. She was to attend a marketing campaign occasion in Philadelphia later within the day after asserting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice presidential working mate. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
Harris mentioned “one of many issues that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on preventing for center class households run deep.”
“It’s private,” she mentioned. “He grew up in a small city in Nebraska, spending summers engaged on his household’s farm. His father died of most cancers when he was 19, and his household relied on Social Safety survivor profit checks to make ends meet. At 17, he enlisted within the Nationwide Guard, serving for twenty-four years. He used his GI Invoice advantages to go to varsity and grow to be a instructor.”
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It was a really completely different take from the Trump marketing campaign, which immediately focused Walz.
“Kamala Harris simply doubled down on her radical imaginative and prescient for America for tapping one other left-wing extremist as her VP nominee,” the moderator in a brand new Trump marketing campaign video charged. “Tim Walz shall be a rubber stamp for Kamala’s harmful liberal agenda.”
GOP working mate Sen. JD Vance criticizes Vice President Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at a Trump marketing campaign occasion in Philadelphia on Aug. 6, 2024. (Fox Information/Paul Steinhauser)
And Vance, who was in Philadelphia hours earlier than the Democrat ticket arrived, referred to as Walz’s file as governor “a joke” and mentioned he was “some of the far-left radicals in your entire United States authorities at any degree.”
Vance is tailing Harris and Walz with small-scale occasions this week as they maintain rallies in key swing states.
Get the most recent updates from the 2024 marketing campaign path, unique interviews and extra at our Fox Information Digital election hub.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based mostly in New Hampshire.
Harris, Walz kick off battleground state swing as VP’s working mate launched to Individuals
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