The 60-year-old Minnesota governor is a great communicator and has won support from the left wing of the Democratic Party.
White smoke. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her number two in the race for the White House, several US media have reported. Both will present their candidacy in public on Tuesday afternoon at a rally in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), the first leg of a tour of seven states in five days.
The selection of Walz, who has progressive leanings and is the current president of the Democratic Governors Association, is the most important decision that Harris has made so far as a new presidential candidate – the vote to confirm her in the position ended on Monday. The consequences of this choice could drag on for years if she wins the November elections. In addition, it indicates what her campaign priorities will be.
For days, the various power groups within the party have been pushing, privately and sometimes very publicly, to promote their favorites. Unions, progressive groups and many legislators who collaborated with him during his 12 years as a congressman, in favor of the governor of Minnesota. Others aligned with centrist positions, in favor of the Pennsylvanian, Josh Shapiro, the other finalist.
In her bid for Walz, Harris has prioritized her communication skills, her identification with the ordinary public and her good relations in the United States Congress. The governor of Minnesota, 60 years old and a former high school teacher, was until just two weeks ago almost a perfect unknown to the general public outside his state. But he rose to fame in the last two weeks as a ubiquitous representative of the campaign in the media, characterized by his direct way of expressing himself. His is the epithet “weird” that has become widespread among Democrats to characterize their Republican rivals, candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance.
The final candidate, Josh Shapiro, 51 years old and considered one of the great rising stars of his party, was supported by his impressive record of achievements, his charisma and the power to scrape together votes in his state, which the Democrats need to win at all costs to win the race for the White House. But criticism from progressive groups towards the pro-Israeli positions of this practising Jew ended up tipping the balance in favour of Walz, considered the option less likely to generate internal divisions.
The whole process has necessarily developed in a hurry. Under normal conditions, the selection of a number two for a presidential ticket is something that takes months of analysis, conversations and thorough research into the most minute details of the bank accounts, life history and thoughts of the candidates. It is a “(political) colonoscopy practiced with a telescope”, as described by former Indiana governor Evan Bayh, the candidate that Barack Obama discarded as his electoral running mate in favour of Joe Biden in 2008.
But Harris’s campaign is not in a normal situation. The vice president took over from Joe Biden when the president dropped out of re-election two weeks ago, and this is all the time she has had to review her political partner options.
A dozen people were on the initial lists. Half a dozen of them were screened, following the public resignations of two of the most likely candidates, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. A team of lawyers led by former Attorney General Eric Holder raced around the clock to examine the documentation provided by the half-dozen finalists: in addition to Walz and Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Interviews with the three finalists
The lawyers submitted their reports to the vice president on Friday. Harris, who has traveled continuously throughout the country to participate in electoral events in recent months, had her agenda closed, without events. She spent the weekend carefully studying those reports at her official residence at the Washington Observatory. She also received three of the candidates there in person and separately: Shapiro, Walz and Kelly. It has not been confirmed whether she interviewed any of the other three finalists virtually.
Harris had made it known that these interviews would be a fundamental factor in her decision. She not only wanted a running mate who would help her win the election. She also wanted political chemistry between them.
On Sunday, Kelly, the senator from Arizona, former astronaut and war veteran, seemed to rule himself out of the list. In a message on the social network X, the former Twitter, which she deleted shortly after, she declared that from now on she would concentrate on working for the citizens of her state. Her spokespeople simply indicated that she had deleted the text because “it was giving rise to misunderstandings.”
On Monday, Harris continued her consultations with her advisers during the morning, before changing gears to participate in a session of the White House National Security Council, alongside President Biden, to address the latest developments in the Middle East.
The interest in knowing the winner of the selection unleashed all kinds of speculation on Monday, to the point that Harris' campaign had to come out to stem the rumor that a decision had already been made. “We understand the excitement and interest out there, but Vice President Harris has not yet decided on an option for her teammate!” spokesman Kevin Muñoz posted on the social network X.
Harris and Walz will take part in a mass meeting in the next few hours at the Liacouras sports hall at Temple University in Philadelphia. The tour they are beginning will take them in the next few days to the key swing states – Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada – to maintain enthusiasm among their voters and generate new momentum among the undecided voters in those states. The idea is that this enthusiasm will be linked to that generated by the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, which will open on the 19th, and leave the campaign with the wind in its face among the public and in the polls for the final stretch of the race, the months of September and October.