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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with remarks from Tuesday’s rally in Philadelphia.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher, is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate.
The pick comes after weeks of speculation that increasingly focused on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Harris continued to interview potential running mates through the weekend and ultimately picked Walz, who emerged as the preferred candidate of progressives.
Walz’s background as a social studies teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School in southern Minnesota was front and center Tuesday evening, during his and Harris’ first appearance as running mates at Temple University in Philadelphia.
“It was my students, they encouraged me to run for office,” said Walz, who left teaching to run for Congress. “They saw in me what I was hoping to instill in them — a commitment to common good, a belief that one person can make a difference.”
Walz, whose wife, father, and siblings were all teachers, intoned: “Don’t ever underestimate teachers.”
Harris spoke of Walz leading his football team from a winless season to the school’s first-ever state championship. And she spoke of his decision to be faculty advisor for his school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance.
“Tim Walz was the kind of teacher and mentor that every child in America dreams of having and that every kid deserves,” she said. “He’s the kind of person that makes people feel like they belong and that inspires them to dream big. And that’s the kind of vice president he will be.”
As governor, Walz took advantage of a Democratic trifecta in state government to push through a progressive policy agenda that included free breakfast and lunch for most schoolchildren. Minnesota was the fourth state to offer school lunch for nearly all students, an early adopter of a policy that has become a growing national trend.
Related: Tim Walz helps Democrats make the ‘prairie populist’ case for public schools
The budget he signed in 2023 included a major funding boost for Minnesota schools and a $1,750 per-child annual tax credit that aimed to reduce childhood poverty. Congress has failed to reinstate the pandemic-era federal child tax credit that dramatically cut childhood hunger and poverty.
Walz also signed a free college tuition program for Minnesota families earning less than $80,000 a year. The program provides last-dollar scholarships that close gaps between students’ financial aid packages and the actual cost of attendance.
Republicans have criticized Walz for increasing the size of state government and sidelining them in the legislative process. If Democrats win the White House in the election against Republican Donald Trump in November, they are unlikely to face such a supportive Congress.
While speculation circled around Shapiro for weeks, the Pennsylvania governor drew criticism in the week leading up to the announcement for his response to pro-Palestinian campus protesters and for an op-ed he wrote in college in which he wrote that peace was not possible with the Palestinians. He said that his views have evolved since. Some public education advocates also expressed concerns about his past voucher support.
Shapiro enthusiastically threw his support behind Harris and Walz Tuesday evening, saying he’s going to “be working my tail off” to get them elected.
“It’s easy to feel uneasy and it’s easy to get down,” he said in a speech that touched on his Jewish faith and leaned into fears about a second Trump administration. “Let me tell you something, America, I’m more optimistic than ever before.”
Walz drew support from House Democrats and from union leaders in the days leading up to the decision. Media reports said that Harris had a good rapport with Walz in their one-on-one interviews. And on social media, many teachers cheered the choice.
Related: Educators: What do you think about former teacher Tim Walz joining the presidential ticket?
Walz tells a story that he got his start in politics when he took some students to a rally for former Republican President George W. Bush, and they were denied entry because one of his students had a sticker for Bush’s Democratic opponent John Kerry.
A military veteran, Walz served six terms in Congress representing a conservative district that went strongly for Trump in 2016. He won election as governor in 2018 and reelection in 2022, despite criticisms over his COVID response, including the length of school closures in Minnesota, and his response to the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In recent weeks, Walz emerged as an outspoken surrogate for Harris, gaining viral video fame for clips in which he calls former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies “weird.” He has also cast the type of policies he enacted in Minnesota as more representative of “family values” than culturally conservative positions backed by Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Walz has what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune dubbed “rumpled uncle looks.” Gun safety activist and Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg called him the “mid-western dad we need as VP.”
When one poster on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, compared Walz’s appearance unfavorably to that of the vice president by asking “how on earth are these two people the same age,” another poster responded, “Because Tim Walz taught high school. Trust me.”
Walz joined in the joke, adding: “And supervised the lunchroom for 20 years. You do not leave that job with a full head of hair. Trust me.”
Carly Sitrin and Dale Mezzacappa contributed reporting from Philadelphia.
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
