Kamala Harris picks Tim Walz as running mate

It’s common, whenever someone skyrockets into mainstream fame, for folks to dig deep through their internet histories. Less common is what happened to Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly announced running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz: Pretty much everything they found was extremely wholesome.

From clips of him riding roller coasters with his daughter at the Minnesota State Fair to giving tips on car maintenance, in the two weeks since his viral appearances on MSNBC, Walz has not only secured the Democratic nomination for vice president, but has also taken on the role of the internet’s collective Midwestern dad, its favorite high school teacher, and the physical representation of everything the progressives have been longing for: a candidate with genuinely good vibes.

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have their fair share of disagreements about policy and politics.

But they both agree that Tim Walz is an excellent vice presidential nominee.

In a bid to undercut Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly announced running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Republicans are mounting attacks on his military record. The charges, which a closer look suggests are misleading or exaggerated, are a notable escalation against the Democratic ticket by the Trump campaign.

The attacks began in earnest on August 7, when Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, sought to tout his own military experience compared to Walz’s. Prior to running for Congress, Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard, while Vance served for four years in the Marine Corps. Neither has seen combat.

Tim Walz was just over a year into his first term as Minnesota governor when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in May 2020, touching off a generation-defining summer of global protests against police brutality and racial inequality.

Four years later, Walz’s handling of the demonstrations — which included mass unrest in Minnesota’s largest cities — is under new scrutiny after Vice President Kamala Harris tapped the governor to be her running mate on Tuesday.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been picked as Kamala Harris’s running mate — and the American left couldn’t be happier.

This is not because Walz himself is an ideological leftist. While he certainly has progressive credibility — in 2023, he passed a series of left-liberal reforms dubbed the “Minnesota Miracle” — he’s also taken more centrist positions on a whole slate of issues, including hot-button ones like crime.

Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday.

Walz’s selection came as something of a surprise. For much of last week, betting markets had given Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro a more than 60 percent chance of joining the Democratic ticket. In opting for Walz instead, Harris defied the conventional wisdom among Democratic consultants, who had broadly favored Shapiro. And on Tuesday morning, some close to the Trump campaign told CNN that they were “breathing a sigh of relief” that the Democratic nominee had not tapped the popular Pennsylvania governor.