US vice president Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. Walz, a Midwestern Democrat with deep ties to labour movements, will be seen as an opportunity for Harris to hang on to some of the ‘blue wall’ states that president Joe Biden flipped from Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
CV-wise, Walz is impressive: he was born in a small town in Nebraska, joined the Army National Guard, worked as a high-school social studies teacher and was elected to Congress in 2006. He won the governor’s mansion in Minnesota in 2018 and won reelection in 2022.
Walz has his own history of pro-Israel policies and statements
Progressives over the past few weeks have pushed hard for Walz after his name popped up on the shortlist next to Arizona senator Mark Kelly, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said that Walz and Beshear were his top picks for the veep slot. ‘That’s who we believe would be best for labour and for working-class people but you know, that’s her decision,’ Fain said. Democrats also seized on Walz’s slate of recent media interviews in which he branded the Trump-Vance ticket as ‘weird’, which has become a popular party talking point.
‘These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room… They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no healthcare plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,’ Walz said in July.
As of last week, Harris was reportedly deciding between Walz and Shapiro. However, Shapiro faced on onslaught of negative press. Shapiro’s top aide stayed in his role for six months after being accused of sexual harassment; and questions are swirling over Shapiro’s time as attorney general (AG), during which the AG’s office upheld a controversial ruling that a woman who was stabbed dozens of times in the back and head had committed suicide. Perhaps most damaging was Shapiro’s vocal support for Israel, which Democrats feared could hurt the ticket with Arab Americans and university students. Shapiro condemned unruly and sometimes violent campus protests post-7 October and wrote in a college essay two decades ago that he did not believe Palestinians could be peaceful.
What has been less covered is that Walz has his own history of pro-Israel policies and statements. He was part of a contingent of congressional Democrats that criticised president Barack Obama for allowing the UN Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements. He was also endorsed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and called Israel ‘our truest and closest ally in the region’ at an AIPAC conference in 2010. Following 7 October, Walz opted to ignore protests urging him to divest the Minnesota pension fund from Israel, even canceling a meeting with Students for Justice in Palestine activists.
Walz has plenty of other baggage that could offset the gains he might bring to the Democrats’ usual pro-union base. He was slow to react to riots in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 and reluctant to send in the National Guard, which led to days of chaos and unrest. Walz has acknowledged his response to the riots was an ‘abject failure’.
The Minnesota governor also signed into law universal background checks and red-flag laws, signed an executive order allowing sex changes for minors and allowed men to play in women’s sports, gave driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, allowed felons to vote as soon as they complete their sentences and advanced green energy mandates. Walz’s office was accused of failing to stop the largest case of pandemic fraud in the country.
Walz has also said that he wants to invest in a ‘ladder factory’ to help illegal immigrants climb Trump’s border wall, adding that, without illegal workers, Americans would be unable to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Most Americans support building a border wall and mass deportations of illegal immigrants. July’s jobs report found that employment for native-born workers declined over the past year while employment for foreign-born workers increased over the past year.
Harris is set to embark on a swing state campaign tour with her newly announced running mate starting today.
A version of this article originally appeared in The Spectator’s world edition.
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