Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday, opting for the Minnesota governor as the partner most likely to complement her in a historic bid for the White House.
Walz had been on a 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 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.
The choice was first reported by CNN early Tuesday morning.
Expectations had always been that Harris would pick a white man to balance the ticket – and the kind of Democrat who can help counter attacks from Republicans that she is too far to the left.
Walz fits that description as a 60-year-old Midwesterner with a folksy manner from a state that could be considered light-years from the coastal elites of California, where Harris comes from, or the East Coast.
He will also appeal to progressives after having championed popular Democratic policies, including cannabis legalization and increasing worker protections.
The duo will hit the campaign trail immediately, launching an intense, five-day swing through battleground states starting Tuesday in the biggest prize, Pennsylvania.
Fresh from securing the official Democratic nomination overnight, Harris can now head to the national convention in Chicago in two weeks in total control of her party.
It has been a remarkable journey for Harris, who only entered the race last month when President Joe Biden withdrew, bowing to mounting concerns over his mental acuity and ability, at 81, to serve a second term.
In a campaign that is barely two weeks old, the 59-year-old former prosecutor has obliterated fundraising records, attracted huge crowds and dominated social media on her way to erasing what had been Trump’s growing lead in polls over Biden.
The latest presidential poll by the University of Massachusetts Amherst released Monday has Harris leading Trump nationally by three points – 46% to 43% – compared to a four-point lead for Trump over Biden in January.
First major test
Picking a vice presidential running mate was seen as the first big test for Harris in her bid to become the country’s chief executive.
Pennsylvania is part of the “blue wall” that carried Biden to the White House in 2020, alongside Michigan and Wisconsin. That was one of the main reasons many expected Harris to instead pick that state’s governor, Josh Shapiro.
Trump was riding high politically last month after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally, and then using the Republican convention to highlight his image of vigor against the physically frail Biden.
But with Biden’s dramatic exit and Harris’s fast start, he is scrambling to recalibrate.
On Saturday, the Harris campaign said Trump was “scared” to debate her after he turned down a previously scheduled televised debate on ABC.
Sebastien Smith, with AFP
