WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepts the Democratic nomination for vice president on Wednesday with 11 weeks to go before he and presidential running mate Kamala Harris face Republican former President Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. election.
Walz, 60, a military veteran, former high school teacher and football coach, will talk about growing up on a farm in Nebraska, his family, and freedoms that Democrats say are under attack from Trump, who is making his third major-party run for the White House.
Walz has brought a folksy charm to the campaign trail, describing himself and Harris as “joyful warriors” focused on a brighter future and accusing Republicans of stoking fear and division.
He will take the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago after former President Bill Clinton, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in persuading President Joe Biden to drop his struggling reelection bid a month ago.
Opinion polls showed Biden trailing Trump before he ceded the party’s top spot to Harris; polls now show her besting her Republican rival in several of the states that will decide the Nov. 5 presidential election.
At the convention on Tuesday, Walz and Harris got a ringing endorsement on Tuesday from former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama.
“I love this guy,” Obama said of Walz. “You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don’t come from some consultant – they come from his closet, and they’ve been through some stuff.”
Walz’s rapid rise to national fame has drawn scrutiny. Republicans say he was too slow to confront rioters after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white policeman in Minneapolis in 2020, though Trump praised the governor’s response at the time.
Republicans have also accused Walz of exaggerating his rank in the Army National Guard, where he served for 24 years.
Walz has in the past described himself as a retired command sergeant major, one of the highest noncommissioned officer positions in the Army. While he achieved that rank, he did not meet the requirements to retire with that title. Walz retired to run for Congress in 2005 before his unit was sent to war in Iraq.
Harris campaign officials are betting Walz’s Midwestern roots and plainspoken style will appeal to some of the white men in rural areas who voted for Trump by huge margins in the last two elections – and help deliver battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Walz will be introduced by Ben Ingman, a former student, and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Minnesotan who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020.
Trump will campaign on Wednesday with his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance of Ohio, in another swing state, North Carolina, where he will speak about national security.
Republicans have criticized the Democrats’ economic plans as dangerously liberal.
As governor, Walz made school meals free, set goals to cut greenhouse gases, expanded paid leave and protected collective bargaining and overtime.
Harris has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, building more affordable housing, expanding a tax credit for parents, and banning “price gouging” by grocers.
Her campaign says she no longer supports some of the policies she proposed in her failed 2020 presidential bid, such as dramatically expanding federal healthcare programs and a ban on fracking.
(This story has been corrected to remove the paragraph that incorrectly stated Retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg will speak at the Democratic convention in support of Kamala Harris)
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery and Idrees Ali; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Heather Timmons, Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)
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