US elections: Kamala Harris picks the Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz as her running mate
Tim Walz appeared for the first time as Kamala Harris’s running mate at a raucous Democratic Party rally, but he touted his rural roots and said Donald Trump would take the United States of America backwards. This was in Philadelphia on the night of Tuesday August 6 where the party’s new nominee for vice-president revealed that their rivals of the Republican Party in the November elections are “weird as hell”.
Walz was speaking in front of thousands of supporters hours after he had been announced as Harris Kamala’s choice for the role but Trump’s camp was quick to attack Walz as a “dangerously liberal extremist”.
The 60-year-old is looked at as someone who could win back the rural and working-class voters who have moved to Donald Trump’s camp in the vital midwestern states. In a key swing state of Pennsylvania, Harris, the US vice-president, said that Walz and her were the “underdogs” in what is expected to be a close election.
She introduced Walz as “a fighter for the middle class and a patriot” giving him chance to recount his small-town roots in Nebraska and his career as a national guardsman and a teacher, before attempting to draw a contrast with Trump.
“He doesn’t know the first thing about service – because he’s too busy serving himself,” said the former army sergeant and football coach receiving the loudest cheers of the night when he took aim at the former president’s criminal record, with chants of “lock him up” from those in the arena.
Walz showed the plain-spoken, folk style that has won praise from Democrats, as he took a jab at Republicans on the issue of abortion access.
“Mind your own damn business!” he said, drawing an ovation from the crowd of more than 10,000 at Temple University.
Harris and Walz have just launched a five-day tour of key battleground states and they will also speak at the Democratic National Convention, which runs from 19 to 22 August in Chicago.
The current two-term governor of Minnesota, Walz has overseen one of the most productive legislative periods in state history, implementing a sweeping left-wing agenda. Democrats have used control of the state legislature to guarantee abortion rights, pass gun control measures and institute paid family leave.
Republicans have criticised Walz for Minnesota’s mask mandate and a shutdown of businesses and schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as his delay to deploy the National Guard to deal with rioting after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
While in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Vance, Trump’s running mate, assailed the new Democratic White House ticket telling reporters that Harris’s choice of Walz shows that “when given the opportunity she will bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party”.
Trump’s campaign said in a statement: “Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”
