Kamala Harris selects Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate
The 60-year-old politician comes with great communication skills and support from the progressive wing
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has selected Governor Tim Walz as her running mate in the race for the White House. The Harris campaign announced the news in a video on social media on Tuesday. The two will address the public at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first leg of a tour of seven states in five days.
It is the most important decision Harris has made so far as the Democrats’ new presidential candidate — the vote to confirm her nomination ended on Monday — and its impact could be felt for years, should she win the November election. It also points to what her campaign priorities will be.
For days, the various power groups within the Democratic Party lobbied, privately and sometimes very publicly, to promote their favorite VP picks. The Minnesota governor was supported by unions, progressive groups and the many lawmakers who worked with him during his 12 years as a congressman. Others, more in the center, supported Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
In selecting Walz, Harris is betting on the 60-year-old governor’s communication skills, his ability to relate to the general public, and his good relations with the U.S. Congress.
The entire process to choose a running mate has been rushed. Under normal circumstances, selecting a No. 2 for a presidential ticket takes months of analysis, discussions and painstaking research into the smallest details of candidates’ bank accounts, history and thoughts. “I’ve likened it to having a colonoscopy performed, but they use a telescope to do it,” was how the former governor of Indiana, Evan Bayh — the VP candidate Barack Obama passed over in favor of Joe Biden in 2008 — described the process.
But the Harris campaign is not working under normal conditions. The vice president became the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate when Biden dropped out of the race two weeks ago — this is all the time she has had to review her VP options.
A dozen people were on the initial lists. Half a dozen of them were screened after the public resignations of two of the most likely candidates, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. A team of lawyers led by former attorney general Eric Holder was tasked with reviewing the documentation submitted by the half dozen finalists. In addition to Walz and Shapiro, the list included Arizona Senator Mark Kelly; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and the governors of Kentucky and Illinois, Andy Beshear and JB Pritzker, respectively.
The lawyers submitted their briefs to the vice president on Friday. Harris — who has traveled around the country for campaign events in recent months — had a full schedule. She spent the weekend carefully studying those briefs at her official residence at the Washington Observatory. She also met there in person and separately with three of the candidates: Shapiro, Walz and Kelly. It has not been confirmed whether she virtually interviewed any of the other three finalists.
Harris had made it clear that these interviews would be a key factor in her decision. She didn’t just want a running mate who would help her win the election. She also wanted to have political chemistry with her vice-presidential candidate.
On Sunday, the senator from Arizona, a former astronaut and war veteran, appeared to be taking himself off the list. In a message on the social network X (formerly Twitter), which he deleted shortly after, Kelly declared that from now on he would concentrate on working for the residents of his state. His spokespeople limited themselves to saying that he had deleted the message because it was being misunderstood.
On Monday, Harris continued to consult with her advisers in the morning before switching gears to participate in a White House National Security Council meeting alongside President Biden to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East.
Interest in finding out who Harris would pick as her running mate sparked all kinds of speculation on Monday, to the point that Harris’ campaign had to come forward to quell the rumor that a decision had already been made. “We understand the excitement and interest here, but VP Harris has made no decision on a running mate yet!” spokesman Kevin Muñoz posted on X.
Harris and Walz will be taking part in a large meeting at the Liacouras Sports Hall at Temple University in Philadelphia. In the next few days, they will visit key swing states — Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — to keep up the enthusiasm among Democrat voters and build new momentum among undecided voters in those states. The idea is for this enthusiasm to feed into the excitement over the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which will begin on August 19, and push the campaign forward in the final stretch of the race, the months of September and October.
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