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It isn't every day that a retired high school social studies teacher makes it to the top rung of U.S. politics, but such is the case for Tim Walz, the plain-spoken Minnesota governor whom Vice President Kamala Harris picked Tuesday to be her running mate in the November presidential election.
He already has endeared himself to Democratic partisans by branding Harris' Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, and his vice-presidential running mate JD Vance, as "just weird," portraying them as unfit to govern the country for four years starting in January 2025.
Trump "doesn't laugh unless he is laughing at someone," Walz said recently. He noted that Trump likes to tell "weird stories" at campaign rallies about a fictional movie cannibal named Hannibal Lecter or sharks attacking him in the ocean and has "an inability to connect like a human being in any way."
But while Walz has won support from the more liberal, progressive wing of the Democratic party during 12 years as a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives and five-plus years as Minnesota's governor in the U.S. heartland, he is a largely unknown and untested figure on the U.S. national political stage.
Tim who?
An August NPR/PBS News/Marist poll showed that most Americans - including most Democrats - had neither a positive nor negative opinion about Walz, largely because they hardly know him.
About 7 in 10 adults and registered voters surveyed in the national poll said they were "unsure" whether they had heard of him or had "never heard" of Walz, including more than 6 in 10 Democrats. Democrats who knew enough to have an opinion were more favorable than not, 31% to 7%.
At 60, Walz is about six months older than Harris, although some U.S. political pundits have already noted he looks oldish compared to both her and Vance, the bearded, 40-year-old Republican vice-presidential candidate.
Walz had a ready retort for his balding, gray-haired appearance, attributing it to having supervised a high school lunchroom for 20 years.
"You do not leave that job with a full head of hair. Trust me," he said on social media.
Small-town roots
Walz's background is strikingly different from that of Harris, who has spent most of her career as a prosecutor in solidly Democratic California, the most populous U.S. state, before winning a seat in the U.S. Senate and then the vice presidency on the 2020 ticket with President Joe Biden.
Walz was born and raised in a small rural town in Nebraska in the agricultural Midwest of the U.S. and later moved with his wife, the former Gwen Whipple, to her home state of Minnesota. The couple has two children, Hope, 23, and Gus, 17.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, taught at Mankato West High School, and coached the school's football team, winning a state championship one year.
He has said he initially decided to run for Congress after he and some students were denied entry to a 2004 reelection rally for then-President George W. Bush, a Republican, when organizers found out they were Democrats.
During Walz's second term as governor starting in early 2023, Minnesota Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature and have been able to advance a liberal policy agenda, winning favor with the progressive wing of the national party.
"You're seeing the contrast when you elect Democrats over Republicans," he said recently. "We don't have the 10 Commandments posted in our classrooms, but we have free breakfast and lunch." Walz is a Lutheran, a mainstream Protestant denomination in the U.S.
Backed liberal policies
In the last year and a half, the Walz-led Minnesota government has enshrined the right to abortion in the state, allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license, expanded background checks for gun transfers, legalized recreational marijuana, and offered protections for people seeking or providing gender-affirming health care.
Walz signed an employment measure, an executive order that removes the college degree requirement for 75% of Minnesota's state government jobs, a move that drew bipartisan support and also was adopted by several other states. Democrats have also funded free meals at schools and free college tuition for students from low-income families in the state.
In late July, in an interview on CNN, Walz was asked whether the string of liberal policies his state has adopted would leave him vulnerable to conservative political attacks during the campaign leading to the November 5 election.
"What a monster," Walz responded. "Kids are eating and having full bellies, so they can go learn, and women are making their own health-care decisions."
He later said, "So, if that's where they want to label me, I'm more than happy to take the [liberal] label."