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Kamala Harris said she was super proud to pick Tim Walz as her running mate, opting for the Minnesota governor with blue-collar credentials as the partner most likely to boost her historic White House bid.
Walz had been on a vice-presidential shortlist with a string of other Democratic figures seen as broadening Harris’s appeal as she sprints into the contest against Donald Trump.
Aiming to make history as the first woman United States president, Harris – already a trailblazer as the first female and first Black and South Asian vice president – has little time before Election Day on November 5, AFP reports.
Harris posted on X: “I am proud to announce that I’ve asked Tim Walz to be my running mate.
“As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team.”
President Joe Biden quickly expressed support for his deputy’s “great decision” to choose Walz, saying the duo “will be a powerful voice for working people and America’s great middle class.”
In a statement shared on his X handle, former US President Barack Obama, and his wife, Michelle, also commended the Harris-Walz ticket.
Obama said, “Like Vice President Harris, Governor #Tim_Walz believes that government works to serve us. Not just some of us, but all of us.
"That’s what makes him an outstanding governor, and that’s what will make him an even better Vice President. Michelle and I couldn’t be happier for Tim and Gwen, their family, and our country.”
Ex-President Bill Clinton also said on X that Walz had walked the walk, “and he’ll be a great vice president.”
Expectations had always been that Harris would pick a white man to balance the ticket and help win over working-class white, male voters, a demographic that propelled Trump to victory in 2016.
Walz fits that description as a 60-year-old Midwesterner with a folksy manner, decades of military experience and a rural perspective.
The one-time teacher and school sports coach flipped a Republican district in 2006 to win a seat in the House of Representatives in a state seen as light years from the coastal elite of California, Harris’s home turf, or the East Coast.
At the same time, Walz will appeal to the left to champion cannabis legalisation, worker protections, abortion rights, and tighter firearm restrictions.
Walz earned enthusiastic endorsements from Democratic liberals as well as centrists like Senator Joe Manchin, who called him “the real deal.”
Speaking after the appointment, Walz said, it was the “honour of a lifetime” and quipped it felt like “the first day of school.”
The pair will hit the campaign trail immediately.
