Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former school teacher and member of Congress, as her vice-presidential nominee.<\/p>\n
Ms Harris wrote on social media that he stood out from the competition because \u201chis convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Walz, 60, said it was \u201cthe honor of a lifetime\u201d to join the Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n
He is viewed as somebody who can win over rural and working-class voters, particularly in crucial Midwestern US states.<\/p>\n
Mr Walz will appear with Ms Harris later on Tuesday at a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before the pair begin a five-day tour of other key battleground states.<\/p>\n
They will also speak at the Democratic National Convention later this month, from 19 to 22 August in Chicago, when the Harris-Walz ticket will be made formal.<\/p>\n
Ms Harris was officially selected as the party\u2019s presidential nominee by a virtual roll-call vote that ended on Monday.<\/p>\n
They will face Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, in the general election on 5 November.<\/p>\n
US media reports indicated Ms Harris had not decided her running mate until Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
Her campaign vetted about a dozen people over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n
Announcing the selection, Ms Harris shared details of Mr Walz\u2019s background \u201cboth because it\u2019s impressive in its own right, and because you see in no uncertain terms how it informs his record\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he\u2019s delivered for working families like his own,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to build a great partnership. We start out as underdogs but I believe together, we can win this election.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the vetting process, Mr Walz drew enthusiastic support from pro-labour groups and his party\u2019s progressive wing.<\/p>\n
He also gained attention with his description of Mr Trump, Mr Vance and \u2018Make America Great Again\u2019 Republicans as \u201cweird\u201d.<\/p>\n
That characterisation has since been adopted by several Democrats, including Ms Harris. Mr Trump recently responded, saying \u201cthey\u2019re the weird ones\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign slammed Mr Walz as a \u201cWest Coast wannabe\u201d who \u201chas spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota\u201d in the image of a left-wing California.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Walz won\u2019t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American\u2019s nightmare,\u201d press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.<\/p>\n
A source close to the vetting process told CBS, the BBC\u2019s US news partner, that Mr Walz was chosen for his experience and record of accomplishment in an executive role. Other factors included a compelling biography, his ability to be a strong messenger against Trump and Mr Vance, and his strong rapport with the vice-president.<\/p>\n
Fellow running-mate contenders as well as outside interest groups have rallied behind his selection.<\/p>\n
Gun safety groups hailed his evolution on the issue after the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting, while Voters of Tomorrow, a youth voter mobilisation group, said it was \u201cexcited to fight for young Americans alongside the Harris-Walz Administration\u201d.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden said in a statement that the two \u201cwill be the strongest defenders of our personal freedoms and our democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will ensure that America continues to lead the world and play its role as the indispensable nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the current two-term governor of Minnesota, Mr Walz has overseen one of the most productive legislative periods in state history.<\/p>\n
With unified control of the state legislature, Democrats have enshrined abortion rights, strengthened gun laws, created new paid family and sick leave policies, and implemented a series of other progressive wish-list items.<\/p>\n
Republicans criticise him for his response to the Covid-19 pandemic and his slow deployment of the National Guard to deal with violence in the aftermath of George Floyd\u2019s murder in 2020.<\/p>\n
Before entering the governor\u2019s office, Mr Walz represented a Republican-leaning district in the US Congress for 12 years.<\/p>\n
He won that seat in 2006 \u2013 the only Democrat to have won in the mostly rural district over the past three decades.<\/p>\n
Mr Walz is a native of rural Nebraska and the son of a school administrator and a stay-at-home mother.<\/p>\n
He grew up farming and hunting and served in the Army National Guard for 24 years after joining aged 17.<\/p>\n
The young Mr Walz also taught secondary school pupils \u2013 first for one year in China, then in Nebraska.<\/p>\n
His wife, Gwen Whipple, a fellow teacher, drew him to her native Minnesota, where he taught social studies and geography and coached American football.<\/p>\n
He has described his entry into politics as almost accidental. He said he volunteered for John Kerry\u2019s 2004 presidential campaign after being angered by an incident in which two of his pupils were turned away from a George W Bush campaign event.<\/p>\n
The post Kamala Harris picks Tim Walz as running mate<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former school teacher and member of Congress, as her vice-presidential nominee. Ms Harris wrote on social media that he stood out from the competition because \u201chis convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep\u201d. Mr Walz, 60, said it was \u201cthe honor of a lifetime\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}