LINCOLN — No matter which state claims him now, Kamala Harris’ choice for a running mate has rural Midwestern roots that stretch into the Nebraska Sandhills and up into the Pine Ridge.
Vice President Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday as her vice presidential running mate.
Walz, 60, is from cattle country in northeast Nebraska. He was born in West Point, grew up in Valentine, graduated from high school in Butte and earned his bachelor’s degree at Chadron State College.
Much of his political bio was built on his time teaching and coaching football, track and basketball. His career has roots in Alliance, Nebraska, where he and his wife, Gwen, taught. Her Minnesota roots led to them moving to Mankato in 1996.
Walz enlisted as an infantryman in the Nebraska National Guard after high school, and he kept serving when he moved to Minnesota. He retired from the National Guard after 24 years in 2005 with the rank of command sergeant major. He was the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to serve in Congress, the Military Times reported.
Coach remembers Walz as teacher
Walz coached linebackers and signaled the defense at Alliance High School under coach Jeff Tomlin, who recently retired and took a job as an assistant at Hastings College.
Tomlin said he remembers Walz as an amazing coach and social studies teacher. He called Walz “an ordinary guy with the extraordinary ability to have a vision for who he is and who he wants to be.”
Walz had an innate skill of connecting with people who were different from him, Tomlin said.
“He was an exceptional teacher, one of the best I’ve been around,” said Tomlin, who like Walz taught social studies. “A lot of that was the positive energy that he brought.”
Tomlin said he and others they coached with are not surprised that Walz was chosen.
“If you’re ever around Tim, you’re not really that shocked,” he said. “He’s got that it factor that very few people have.”
From a Mankato classroom to the White House: Harris names Walz her vice presidential nominee
Nelson says Walz is great with people
Former Nebraska U.S. Sen. and Gov. Ben Nelson said he remembers a young Walz as an educator who pressed him during Nelson’s first campaign for governor.
Walz has said he got the bug to teach when he spent a year in China in the early 1990s, teaching English and American history to high school students.
“He’s a very principled person with deep beliefs about education and about families,” Nelson said. “He is … the kind of person who never meets a stranger. He develops friendships quickly.”
He called Walz “a good friend” and “a warm person” who takes no time to make people comfortable. Nelson lauded Harris’ vice presidential pick as a way to connect better with the Midwest.
Nelson compared Harris’ task of picking a running mate with choosing a lieutenant governor. He said you want someone who shares your values and reflects well on your campaign’s vision.
Political observers said they expect Walz to help the Harris campaign in the “Blue Wall” states of Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as well as in Nebraska’s 2nd District, the Omaha area.
“He doesn’t have to introduce himself to those states,” Nelson said. “I don’t think he has to go and convince them that he’s interested in the same areas that they’re interested in.”
Walz visits Nebraska often
Walz, during a September 2023 trip to Omaha for the Nebraska Democratic Party’s “Ben Nelson Gala,” explained his political approach as going out and talking to people like neighbors. He spoke at the event in 2010 as well, when it was called the Morrison-Exon dinner.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz picked by Harris as her running mate on Democratic ticket
Walz touted his work to expand school lunch and breakfast programs for all school kids. He has backed abortion rights, paid family leave, expanded health care and recreational marijuana.
But he told the Nebraska group that for people to embrace progressive policies, including climate change, Democrats needed to focus more on people’s bottom line, family budgets.
“You can go out and try to message this, but it’s kind of hard to vote against kids’ meals at the end of the day,” he said. “We should stay focused on the things that improve people’s lives.”
He has laughed when asked about whether he considers himself a Nebraskan or a Minnesotan, saying last fall that his mom still lives in Butte and his brother-in-law still lives in Alliance.
Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said Walz “brings real and deep experiences in rural towns, veteran communities and of course with teachers.”
“Rural America is having our moment being represented on the national stage,” she said.
Walz served in Congress from 2007-2019. He was elected Minnesota’s governor in 2018 and was re-elected in 2022.
Kerrey says pick could bridge gap between rural and urban
Bob Kerrey, also a former Nebraska governor and U.S. senator, said it’s vital for Democrats nationally to show interest in issues faced by Americans outside of cities and suburbs.
Walz, he said, would shine in his ability to “bridge the gap between rural and urban America.” Kerrey, who moved to New York after serving in the Senate, said people in both types of places just want to be heard.
“If all he can do is bridge that gap a little bit … you’re gonna get good policies,” Kerrey said.
It’s also important, Kerrey said, for people involved in national politics to learn that someone who didn’t attend Harvard, Stanford or Yale can contribute in key ways to our politics.
“He looks like a guy you could run into in a coffee shop in Valentine,” Kerrey said. “He’s an enlisted man. He went to one of our state colleges. There’s nothing about him not to like.”
Chadron State President Ron Patterson said Walz’s selection shows his students that they “can make a difference in the world, even if you start at a small college in the corner of northwest Nebraska.”
Republicans criticize selection
Local and national Republicans have criticized the Walz pick for a variety of reasons, describing him and Harris as the most progressive ticket to run for president in decades.
In a statement, Nebraska Republican Party Chairman Eric Underwood criticized the selection process that resulted in Harris becoming the Democratic nominee for president without facing primary voters first and then her ability to select Walz as her running mate.
“Instead of millions of Democrat voters having a voice in their presidential nomination, less than a couple thousand delegates chose for them,” Underwood said in the release.
Several Republicans commenting online have criticized Walz for questioning the effectiveness of a border wall.
Delanie Bomar of the National Republican Congressional Committee criticized Walz’s handling of the aftermath of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis and said he is wrong on crime.
But Nelson said Nebraskans won’t be fooled by sound-bite critiques of one of their own. He said most people understand “how difficult those decisions are” for governors.
Nelson said he respected Walz for helping a city police itself in the wake of what a court later determined was Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
“Watching the challenges that have arisen … I think you have a better appreciation for how challenging it is for anybody to deal with them. He didn’t walk away,” Nelson said.
“And I don’t think the justice system has walked away from the incidents in Minnesota, either.”
Harris, in a statement Tuesday, said she picked Walz as her running mate because “his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep.”
“It’s personal,” she said. “As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his own. We are going to build a great partnership.”