WASHINGTON — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is on a group text called “sports buddies” with dozens of current and former members of Congress, men and women. They mostly trash-talk each others’ favorite teams.
But when Walz gave an interview on MSNBC after President Joe Biden withdrew from the election, that chat became a venue to discuss a different competition: who will be named Kamala Harris’ running mate.
“Walz blew it up on MS this morning. He now has to be on the list,” former Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., texted the group.
It was part of a media blitz by the popular two-term governor in recent days, which has not only helped add a key viral message to the Harris campaign — Walz’s message slamming Republicans as “weird” was quickly embraced by Harris and other Democrats — but has also catapulted him to the short list of her veep contenders.
Walz didn’t engage on the text chain, but others felt the same way. “A lot of people chimed in saying, ‘Wow, Tim would be great,’” said Yarmuth, a former Budget Committee chairman who retired from the House last year.
Yarmuth and Walz were elected to Congress in the blue wave of 2006, when Democrats picked up some 30 seats and won control of the House. Walz was soon elected freshman class president.
“That says a lot about his standing with his colleagues and the affection that he’s able to generate personally,” Yarmuth said.
Walz, 60, is relatively unknown on the national stage — most Democratic voters wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a crowd. But Walz, who served for more than two decades in the Army National Guard and went on to become the top Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, was well respected on Capitol Hill during his 12-year stint, including for his political instincts.
Lawmakers who worked with him said that Walz — a former high school social studies teacher and football coach — wasn’t seen as a legislative leader, but they appreciated his plain-speaking demeanor and his military service. They also noticed his ability to consistently win re-election in a rural, red-trending district that was about evenly divided in 2012 and swung heavily to Donald Trump in 2016.
The Harris short list
Walz is now one of a handful of Democrats — including fellow Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, as well as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona — being vetted by Kamala Harris and her team to be her vice presidential pick. But Walz’s old colleagues said it’s his deep relationships on Capitol Hill that set him apart and could help Harris, whose four years in the Senate didn’t bring about the sorts of deep bonds that Biden built over decades and benefited from in the White House.
“You had to look at Democratic governors, obviously, and you had to look at the Midwest. And I think he’s on that short list,” Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who served with Walz for all 12 years, said, explaining how Harris’ team might be approaching the pick. “But then you add in the fact that he’s served in Congress. He has relationships with members of Congress. He is a veteran, working in the National Guard and a teacher."
“On balance, Gov. Walz checks more boxes” than the other vice presidential contenders, Larsen said.
Walz isn’t the only person on Harris’ short list with Hill experience (Kelly, for example, was elected in 2020). But Rep. Betty McCollum, a fellow Minnesota Democrat, noted that Walz had the most experience in Congress of anyone on the list — and said being a creature of the House is arguably more valuable than the Senate.
“The adage ‘all politics is local’ is something that House of Representative folks have to understand, especially people like Tim, who came from a district that had been red before. How are you true to the values that you want to be moving forward nationally and still reflect and represent and have the confidence and trust of your district that you’re representing now?" McCollum said.
Larsen sees a lot of parallels between the Barack Obama and Joe Biden partnership and a potential Harris-Walz ticket. Obama had been a senator, like Biden, but didn’t have the decades of experience and relationships that Biden had. So Obama leaned on Biden to work across the aisle, meet with lawmakers and get his agenda passed on the Hill. Larsen, the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also suggested that Harris, a former senator who came up through California politics, could use a House guy.
“The House of Representatives is a different character than the Senate, and so I think having those relationships in the House of Representatives would be important for a president like Harris, who’s coming out of the Senate,” Larsen said in an interview. “She’s going to establish her own relationships, and should — no question about that. But why recreate something when you already have it?”
A local campaigner
During his time in Congress — from 2007 to 2019 — Walz cut a low profile on divisive national issues and mostly kept it local. It helped him keep the seat in Democratic hands through red waves like 2010 and 2014. In 2016, Trump dominated his district and Walz won re-election by less than 1 point. Soon after, he left to run his first of two successful bids for governor. Republicans have been on a winning streak in that House district ever since.
Walz “ran strong campaigns,” said Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., who in 2016 was a congressman and chaired the House campaign arm. “He earned the trust of his voters. His voters didn’t just vote for him, they like him.
“Congressman Walz was the kind of representative that would show up into every corner of his district, he would have town halls in every corner of his district,” Lujan added. “And even voters that may have disagreed with his voting record, they appreciated that he showed to listen and talk.”
If she’s elected, Harris would make history as the first female president and the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent in the role. Being from California, she’ll need a running mate who can help shore up support for Democrats in battleground states in the upper Midwest or Sun Belt.
McCollum said she helped recruit Walz to run in the district back in 2006 after seeing how aptly he communicated with different groups across southern Minnesota.
“Being a football coach and a teacher, he knew a lot of people in town, and he went out and talked to farmers and just talked to people and really listened — that’s how he took that district,” she said.
McCollum recalled being met with exasperation by Rahm Emanuel, who as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at that time, was in charge of overseeing the party’s efforts to take back control of the House.
“I came back to Rahm, and I said, ‘I met this fabulous guy. He’s in a red district, and I think he’s going to win,’” McCollum recalled. “And Rahm looked at me like I was crazy. He said, ‘No, he has no money, no nothing.’”
“Tim put together a marvelous grassroots campaign,” she said.
Rep. Angie Craig, another Minnesota Democrat, recalled how impressed she was when Walz, running in a conservative district in 2006, campaigned in support of marriage equality.
“The level of courage he’s displayed over the years is pretty extraordinary. It’s pretty personal to me,” said Craig, who in 2018 became the first openly gay person to be elected to Congress from Minnesota.
“Back in 2006 he was a proud supporter of marriage equality … from a red congressional district. It certainly wasn’t a popular position at the time,” she said. “We all remember there were even leading Democratic presidential candidates [at that time] who wouldn’t support marriage equality. It didn’t give Tim any political points. But as a Minnesotan in 2006, I can’t tell you what it meant to my wife and I and our four sons to have him do the right thing and stand up for families like mine, just because he thought it was the right thing to do.”
While she didn’t overlap with Walz in Congress, Craig says she nevertheless sees the footprint he made in the relationships he forged with other members over his 12 years in the chamber — relationships she’s confident he’d draw heavily on as vice president to help move legislation.
“People really like Tim Walz in Washington,” she said. “So in terms of, like actually getting things done, I think Tim would be a great person.”
“He has a leg up when it comes to the relationships in Congress, the friendships that he has in Washington from his time there,” she said.
Advancing veterans issues
Walz, who at the time of his swearing-in in 2007 became the highest-ranking retired noncommissioned officer to serve in Congress, is also remembered fondly by his former House colleagues with military experience.
Former Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., who served as the undersecretary of the U.S. Army under Obama, said he and Walz worked together to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2010 and lauded his former colleague for leading authorship of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.
But beyond those accomplishments, Murphy expressed just how crucial it is to have a former veteran in the White House.
“The two largest federal agencies are the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Having someone with that knowledge and experience, especially someone in a post-9/11 generation, is incredibly important,” said Murphy who shared a small apartment with Walz when the two were freshmen lawmakers in Washington, D.C., together.
“The fact that he was a high school teacher and a football coach who answered our country’s call during her time of need, to leave his family to deploy overseas, that he’s one of the less than 1% of Americans who answer that call … is a testament to his public service and his love of country,” Murphy said.
