Since Tim Walz surged into competition to be Vice-President Kamala Harris’s running mate, a certain photo started appearing everywhere. In it, a smiling Walz is hugged by happy children. The photo marked an important occasion: In March 2023, the Minnesota governor had just signed into law a bill that guaranteed free breakfasts and lunches in public schools. Republican lawmakers mostly opposed the bill with some arguing that the universal program would benefit the wealthy and increase spending too much. Though spending did increase, it did so for a good cause: feeding hungry kids. Compared to the period before, the number of school breakfasts served increased by 30 percent and lunches by 11 percent. In practical terms, the state provided millions of meals to children who needed them.
The free-meal program not only feeds children who need to eat; it also reduces the stigma of poverty, as the Minnesota Reformer pointed out in a January story. Reduced-price or free school meals could sometimes look different from full-price meals, essentially penalizing children whose families need extra help. Because this program is universal, it relieves families who made too much to qualify but who struggle, still, to keep everyone fed. While the right may call this socialist, it is also an example of providing for the common good and can help explain why so many progressives celebrated when Walz joined the Harris ticket.
“Being a Midwesterner too, I know a little something about commitment to people,” Walz said during a recent speech in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “My mom and dad taught me to show generosity to my neighbors and work for a common good.” His record shows glimpses of that conviction at work. In Congress, he backed the Affordable Care Act, and as governor, he supports a public option for insurance; he has also called health care “a basic human right.”
The governor’s commitment to the common good extends to reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and gun control. He supported marriage equality years before Barack Obama did, speaks openly of his family’s experiences with IVF, and donated campaign contributions from the NRA after the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. Some critics might argue that leaves him vulnerable to attacks from the right. Conservatives have attacked him for being a socialist — a line that doesn’t seem to phase him one bit, even though the label doesn’t apply. “How are you gonna build a water-treatment plant in a town of 400 if you don’t have a collective effort at it?” he told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki in July. “They scream socialism; we just build roads.” That’s an effective way to defuse the right’s customary red-baiting. The Trump campaign will call Walz and Harris communists no matter what policies they endorse. To date, though, Walz has defended his vision of the common good without punching left — which is a refreshing change from the Democratic Party norm.
As Vox reported earlier this month, Walz has been praised by Senator Joe Manchin as well as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. No politician can be all things to all people; eventually, he’ll let someone down. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Walz isn’t as far left as some progressives might wish. He doesn’t appear to support a universal health-care system like Medicare for All, as Harris once did before she backtracked, and he hasn’t supported activist calls for an arms embargo on Israel. But the left is used to pressuring Democratic politicians, and Walz may be a friendlier target than is typical. There’s his record, of course, but also his normal affect; he’s a former public-school teacher and union member who attended public colleges and isn’t wealthy. Although those qualities aren’t proof by themselves that Walz could be amenable to pressure, leftists aren’t wrong to hope, either.
Much depends on the Harris-Walz ticket’s policy proposals; an economic-plan rollout is reportedly set for Friday. If the campaign strategists are smart, they will build on the current momentum by joining good vibes with sound policy. They should know by now that they don’t need to pivot to the right to win the election. In Walz, Harris has a partner who knows how to defend liberalism without apology, and that’s far superior to the defensive crouch Democrats usually adopt even if it falls short of what the left truly wants. As Trump and J.D. Vance descend further into unhinged bigotry and chaos, Harris and Walz should offer voters a clear alternative. She speaks often of freedom on the campaign trail, and none of us are truly free under leaders who fail to protect the common good. Without strong unions or reproductive rights or common-sense gun control, we’re vulnerable — to capitalist greed, to forced pregnancy and birth, to violence. No one expects a revolutionary Democratic vice-president, and it’s unclear how much influence Walz would actually wield in a Harris White House. Even so, his emphasis on collective power and common good could move the country forward, not back. That’s progress.
