Minnesota Governor Tim Walz may not have been present at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday evening, but his fashion sense was certainly felt. On Tuesday, former US President Barack Obama praised Walz’s signature flannel shirts, saying they “don’t come from some political consultant, they come from his closet.”

Obama on Tim Walz: Let me tell you something. I love this guy… You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don’t come from some political consultant, they come from his closet, and they have been through some stuff. pic.twitter.com/8vYqzNvWNy

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 21, 2024

The next day, Walz’s wife, Gwen, reacted to Obama’s comment by posting a photo of her husband sewing a button on one of his beloved flannel shirts. “It’s so true, @BarackObama. Tim loves his flannels,” she wrote on X.

Obama reposted the photo, expressing his admiration for Walz. “I love this guy. Watch tonight to hear from @Tim_Walz – a man who knows what leadership looks like – and how to fix his own flannels.” 

I love this guy. Watch tonight to hear from @Tim_Walz — a man who knows what leadership looks like — and how to fix his own flannels. https://t.co/exzqjUzplL

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 22, 2024

The exchange came just before Tim Walz accepted his party’s nomination for vice president on Wednesday. Walz’s flannel style has been a hallmark of his folksy, down-to-earth persona, and it appears to have resonated with voters. His convention address was met with enthusiasm from the packed arena.

Walz thanked the delegates for “bringing the joy” to the election. “We’re all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason: We love this country,” he said, as thousands of delegates held up ‘Coach Walz”‘ placards in red, white and blue. 

Tim Walz’s speech was filled with intimate details about his family’s struggles, including their battle with infertility. He spoke about the importance of respecting others’ choices, saying, “In Minnesota, we respect our neighbours and the personal choices they make and even if we wouldn’t make those same choices for ourselves we’ve got a golden rule: mine your own damn business.”

A heartwarming clip shared on social media showed Walz’s son, Gus, in tears beside his mother and sister, Hope, as they clapped and cheered for the governor. 

Tim Walz’s kids tear up: “That’s my dad!” pic.twitter.com/xfw3C2aI9N

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) August 22, 2024

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s convention featured speeches by Barack and Michelle Obama. 

New Delhi:

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s son, Gus, stole the spotlight today as his father accepted the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Seventeen-year-old Gus, who is neurodivergent and has ADHD, was overcome with emotion as he watched his father take the stage. With tears streaming down his face, Gus stood up and proudly pointed at his dad, exclaiming, “That’s my dad!”

The crowd was visibly moved by the heartfelt display, and social media quickly filled with praise for the Walz family’s authenticity.

Tim Walz’s son just ripped my heart RIGHT OUT OF MY CHEST GEEZUS pic.twitter.com/dqP7I5MtN9

— Renee (@PettyLupone) August 22, 2024

Gus’s sister, Hope, also showed her support, making a heart symbol with her hands and mouthing “love you” to her father as he took the stage.

Tim Walz introduced himself and his family to millions of Americans on a star-studded night at the DNC as he accepted the nomination to be Kamala Harris’s White House running mate.

In a whirlwind quarter-hour address, Walz raced through the story of his middle-class upbringing in small town Nebraska, where he worked on the family farm, and described his experience teaching students who inspired him to go into politics.

The speech comes ahead of Kamala Harris’ big night where she will officially accept the democratic party’s nomination to face Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential elections. Harris and her running mate Walz will be up against Trump and JD Vance.

Polls show the race remains close, but Harris is moving slightly ahead – a remarkable turn of events, given that only a month ago Trump seemed to be gaining a steadily tightening grip over Joe Biden.

U.S. Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on August 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepted his party’s nomination for vice president Wednesday (August 21, 2024) night, using his Democratic National Convention address to thank the packed arena for “bringing the joy” to a U.S. election transformed by the elevation of his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“We’re all here tonight for one beautiful, simple, reason: We love this country,” Mr. Walz said as thousands of delegates hoisted vertical placards reading “Coach Walz” in red, white and blue.

Mr. Walz described his upbringing in Nebraska and teaching and coaching football in Minneosta and told the crowd, “Thank you for bringing the joy to this fight.”

“While other States were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” he said. In a dig at his Republican counterpart, J.D. Vance, he added, “I had 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale.”

When Mr. Walz talked about the difficulty conceiving his daughter, Hope, she made a heart with her hands and held it over her chest. His son, Gus, wept watching his dad speak and at least once shouted, “That’s my dad!”

“I haven’t given a lot of speeches like this but I’ve given a lot of pep talks,” Mr. Walz said.

Democrats gathered at Chicago’s United Center are hoping to build on the momentum Ms. Harris has brought since taking over the top of the party’s presidential ticket last month.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., August 21
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Many Americans had never heard of Mr. Walz until Ms. Harris made him her running mate. In his first weeks of campaigning, he’s charmed supporters with his background and helped to balance Ms. Harris’ coastal background as a cultural representative of Midwestern States whose voters she needs this fall.

But Mr. Walz also has faced scrutiny, including questions about embellishing his background. His wife this week clarified that she did not undergo in vitro fertilization, as Mr. Walz has repeatedly claimed, but used other fertility treatments. Republicans also have criticised Walz for a 2018 comment he made about carrying weapons in war. Though he served in the National Guard for 24 years, he did not deploy to a war zone.

Bill Clinton denounces Donald Trump

Mr. Walz’s speech followed former President Bill Clinton who returned to a place he knows well, the Democratic National Convention stage, to denounce Donald Trump as selfish and praise Kamala Harris as focused on the needs of Americans — firing up his party with his trademark off-the-cuff flourishes.

Mr. Clinton was meant to add heft to a third DNC night headlined by vice presidential nominee Tim Walz ‘s introduction to a national audience.

“We’ve got a pretty clear choice it seems to me. Kamala Harris, for the people. And the other guy who has proved, even more than the first go-around, that he’s about me, myself and I,” Mr. Clinton said.

The nation’s 42nd president and a veteran of his party’s political convention going back decades, Mr. Clinton was once declared the “secretary of explaining stuff” by Barack Obama, whose reelection bid in 2012 was bolstered by a Mr. Clinton stemwinder at that year’s DNC.

Now 78 — the same age as Mr. Trump — Mr. Clinton’s delivery was sometimes halting, his movements slower and he mispronounced Ms. Harris’ first name twice. His left hand often shook when he wasn’t using it to grip the lectern.

Still, he delivered several memorable, homespun pronouncements including asking. “What does her opponent do with his voice? He mostly talks about himself. So the next time you hear him, don’t count the lies, count the I’s.”

Trump slams DNC

Mr. Trump bashed the convention as a “charade” and noted the fact that he has been a frequent topic of conversation. He also singled out his predecessor, Mr. Obama, for a highly critical convention speech Tuesday night, saying Obama had been “nasty.”

“I very much consider us the underdog, we have a lot of work to do to earn the vote of the American people,” Kamala Harris said. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

Kamala Harris arrived in Chicago on Sunday (August 18, 2024) ahead of her star turn at the Democratic National Convention, perhaps the most pivotal moment yet for her short but stunning election campaign against Donald Trump.

The U.S. Vice President has re-energised the party after an astonishing month that has seen her replace President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and wipe out Republican rival Trump’s lead in the polls.

On the way to Chicago, Ms. Harris stopped in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania – which Mr. Trump won in 2016 and Mr. Biden in 2020 – and embarked on a day-long bus tour in a bid to keep up the momentum.

Accompanied by her running mate Tim Walz and their respective spouses, they set off from Pittsburgh on a coach emblazoned with their names to a series of rust-belt towns to woo blue-collar voters.

But Ms. Harris insisted that Mr. Trump was still the favourite to win and that she would campaign hard with just 79 days until the November 5, 2024, election.

“I very much consider us the underdog, we have a lot of work to do to earn the vote of the American people,” Ms. Harris told reporters in Pennsylvania. “That’s why we’re on this bus tour today.”

‘Fight for the future’

Her rapid rise has unsettled 78-year-old former president and convicted felon Mr. Trump, who is resorting to his favoured tactic of personal insults against America’s first female, Black and South Asian Vice President.

A day earlier at a rally in Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump lashed out at Ms. Harris as a “lunatic” and bragged that he was “much better looking” than 59-year-old Harris.

Ms. Harris’s headline convention speech on Thursday (August 15, 2024) will now be a vital opportunity to sell her story to an electorate that is still getting used to the new name at the top of the Democratic ticket.

She is expected to cast the election as a “fight for the future” against a second Trump term while promising an optimistic vision for Americans struggling with high prices.

Ms. Harris is set to join President Joe Biden on stage when he addresses the convention on Monday (August 19, 2024) – a speech that just a few weeks ago he expected to be giving as the Democratic candidate.

The ageing president is reportedly still fuming over the way Democrats pushed him out, believing he still could have beaten Mr. Trump.

But Mr. Biden is expected to focus instead on passing the torch and on what he terms the threat to democracy posed by Mr. Trump, as he seeks to cement his legacy by helping Ms. Harris to victory.

‘Gaza genocide’

Kamala Harris’s rapid rise has allowed Democrats to hope again, just a few short weeks after a disastrous debate performance by Mr. Biden leading many to think the election was already lost.

A Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos survey published Sunday (August 18, 2024) showed Ms. Harris with a narrow lead over Mr. Trump among registered voters across the country, where one month ago it had Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden in a dead heat.

But the shadow of protest against the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza is hanging over the convention.

Security has been ramped up for the four-day meeting with tens of thousands of people expected to descend on the city to hold daily protests, the biggest of which are set for Monday (August 19, 2024) and Wednesday (August 21, 2024).

On Sunday (August 18, 2024) several hundred noisy demonstrators gathered in downtown Chicago carrying a banner saying, “Feminist and LGBTQ+ People for a Free Palestine.”

“The march was going to be for reproductive rights, then the Gaza genocide exploded. That’s why we’re here,” said 76-year-old David Finkel, from Michigan, who said he was also in Chicago for the infamous 1968 protests at the Democratic convention.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said the planned protests would be allowed as long as they remained peaceful.

“If there are troublemakers, they are going to get arrested and they are going to get convicted,” he told CNN.

Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, may not in his wildest dreams have imagined that one day he would be picked as a running mate alongside a U.S. presidential candidate, yet that was indeed how the plot twist on the Democratic side played out at this tail end of the 2024 election season.

Mr. Walz, a man whose demeanour has been described as “folksy” and who has said on the record that Republican challenger and former President Donald Trump’s policy priorities were “weird”, may in fact turn out to be the perfect foil to Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for the race to the White House in November. Not only do the two Democratic leaders’ profiles offer a balance of gender and racial parity for their campaign, but their track records suggest that their popular appeal among the electorate may be as broad as the party could hope.

Ms. Harris is seen as a tough former prosecutor who speaks out strongly on core Democratic issues such as reproductive rights, and Mr. Walz has a reputation for flipping Republican districts in favour of Democrats by reaching out to independent and undecided voters.

In a sense, Ms. Harris’ pick was a close call, and many had assumed that the frontrunner in that race was Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, a critical swing State whose votes the Democrats will certainly need if they’re to win the presidency. In this context, her selecting Mr. Walz says more about his personality and antecedents than it does about the calculus of regional politics for the election.

So, what does Mr. Walz bring to the table?

Small-town childhood

Born to a middle-class family — his father was a school teacher — in West Point, Nebraska, a small town, and graduating from high school from an even smaller town called Butte, Mr. Walz has said his values were shaped by such a rural upbringing: “A town that small had services like that and had a public school with a government teacher that inspired me to be sitting where I’m at today.”

He went on to graduate with a degree in social science education from Chadron State College in Nebraska and an MSc in educational leadership from Minnesota State University in 2001. Following the footsteps of his father, an Army veteran who served in the Korean War, Mr. Walz served in the Army National Guard after high school. He ended up serving in the Army for a total of 24 years, during which time he rose to the rank of command sergeant major and then retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005.

After completing his university education, he spent a year teaching in China as part of one of the first cohorts of American educators authorised by the U.S. government to teach in Chinese high schools — clearly an experience that had a lasting influence on him, as he is said to still speak Mandarin.

Democratic representation

It would have been expected that with this diverse and rich experience under his belt Mr. Walz would plunge deeper into the education sector and the teaching profession, yet that was not to be. The story goes that during the 2004 presidential election, Mr. Walz was teaching and took his class to a George W. Bush campaign event to give his students a sense of what democratic politics looked like. When the Secret Service at the event saw that some of his students were sporting clothing indicating that they were supporters of Bush’s Democratic opponent, John Kerry, they ejected the students from the rally, an act that angered Mr. Walz and propelled him towards joining politics as a local campaign manager for Mr. Kerry.

From that point on, there was no turning back for him. In 2006, Mr. Walz stood for Congress in Minnesota’s first district, “a heavily rural area covering the south of Minnesota where only one other Democrat had won in the preceding century”. Despite poor odds, Mr. Walz ended up winning with 53% of the vote. With a firm grip on this tough district, Mr. Walz was re-elected every two years there until 2018, when he retired to run for Governor of Minnesota. His consistent record of popularity with his constituents was reflected in the gubernatorial capacity as well, and his State voted for him not only in 2018 but also in 2022, making him the present incumbent.

Mr. Walz’s active career in the House of Representatives clearly underscores his credentials as a reliable progressive within the firmament of Democratic Party leaders. Not only did his former career choices of school teacher and army vet consistently win him respect among his peers and constituents over the years, but his voting record shows that he ranks among the Democratic Party mainstream — for example multiple votes over the years in favour of raising the minimum wage, supporting stem cell research, giving Medicare greater leeway to negotiate for affordable medicines, lowering tuition costs for university students and in backing reproductive rights.

He is not, however, entirely unfamiliar to controversies, personal and political, including, in the former category, an arrest, charge and related conviction in 1995, when he was still a teacher, for driving under the influence. He has since become a teetotaller. On the political front, as soon as his pick for Ms. Harris’ running mate was announced, Mr. Walz was targeted by the Republican campaign with comments such as “No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz.”

Yet, the truth is that Mr. Walz, while no doubt cherishing his time teaching in China and even setting up a business with his wife that organised annual summer educational trips to that country, is fairly hard-nosed on his view about violations of human rights in the region.

He is known, for example, to have met with both the Dalai Lama and high-profile Hong Kong democracy activist, Joshua Wong prior, to the latter’s arrest, when Mr. Walz was a Congressman. Reports note that during his time in Congress, Mr. Walz spent more than a decade serving on the Executive Commission on China, described as “a body focused on scrutinising the Chinese government’s human rights abuses”.

Safe pick

While it is expected that the Harris-Walz duo will deliver, in what remains of this election season, a policy agenda and campaign effort that truly reflects the full power and value set of the Democratic Party as it stands today — and that matters for complex issues such as immigration reform and job creation — it remains to be seen whether either of them commands a sufficiently broad recognition among voters that could rival the reputation of Mr. Trump. The voters’ choice will, however, set the tenor for the brand of politics that Americans want to see for the next four years — continuing polarisation across issues, or genuine attempts to build unity across the partisan divide.

U.S. Democratic vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday as presidential candidate Kamala Harris looks on
| Photo Credit: AFP

U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate has raised eyebrows, and plenty of questions, in China. Mr. Walz had spent considerable time in China, with his first visit being in 1989, the year the military crushed pro-democracy protests.

Demonstrators spent weeks on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square demanding democracy before the military conducted a deadly crackdown on June 4, 1989.

Also Read:Who is Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s pick for Vice-President?

Mr. Walz was married on the fifth anniversary of that politically sensitive date.

Discussion of the events at Tiananmen is strictly censored in China but many social media users made veiled references on Wednesday (August 7, 2024) to the timing of Mr. Walz’s stint in the country.

The 60-year-old former schoolteacher has visited China dozens of times, including on summer trips with student groups for sightseeing and cultural exchange.

In 1989, Mr. Walz moved to Foshan, a city in China’s southern Guangdong province, for a year of teaching English at a local high school, according to media reports at the time.

Mr. Walz married his wife Gwen on June 4, 1994, an article in a local U.S. newspaper said.

“He wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” his wife was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, social media users in China questioned the timing of Mr. Walz’s 1989 arrival in the country and suggested ulterior motives.

‘Special mission’

“He came to China at a time of turmoil, clearly with a special mission,” one user commented on the platform Weibo.

“Is he from the CIA?” another wrote.

“Look at the year and you cannot help but be sceptical,” chimed in a third.

Mr. Walz has pushed back against the assertion that the United States and China are necessary adversaries, a view widespread in Washington in recent years as trade and geopolitical disagreements with Beijing mount.

“I lived in China and as I said I have been there about 30 times,” he told farming news website Agri-Pulse in a 2016 interview.

“But if someone tells you they are an expert on China, they are probably not telling you the truth because it is a complex country,” he said.

But despite his positive comments on Chinese people and culture, Mr. Walz has also been critical of its government, telling local U.S. media in 1990 that with “proper leadership” the country could achieve great success.

In 2016, while representing Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives, he met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader denounced by Beijing as a dangerous separatist.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it would not comment on Ms. Harris’s choice of Mr. Walz as a running mate, calling the election an internal affair of the United States.

“We hope the U.S. side can work with the Chinese side to move in the same direction,” the statement said.

Social media users wondered what Mr. Walz’s personal connection to their country might mean if elected. “If Harris is elected President, Vice President Walz will have a definite influence on her China policy,” one user wrote.

Making one of the most consequential decisions of her campaign, the US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, reports have said.

Here Are Five Points On Tim Walz:

U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate on Tuesday (August 6, 2024), according to three people who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

In choosing Mr. Walz, she is turning to a Midwestern Governor, military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.

U.S. presidential election | New poll shows Kamala Harris strengthening against Donald Trump

Ms. Harris hopes to shore up her campaign’s standing across the upper Midwest, a critical region in presidential politics that often serves as a buffer for Democrats seeking the White House. The party remains haunted by Republican Donald Trump’s wins in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016. Trump lost those states in 2020 but has zeroed in on them as he aims to return to the presidency this year and is expanding his focus to Minnesota.

Mr. Walz, 60, is joining Ms. Harris during one of the most turbulent periods in modern American politics, promising an unpredictable campaign ahead. Republicans have rallied around Trump after his attempted assassination in July. Just weeks later, President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, forcing Ms. Harris to unify Democrats and consider potential running mates during an exceedingly compressed time frame.

The three people spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the official announcenment later Tuesday.

Ms. Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to lead a major party ticket, initially considered nearly a dozen candidates before zeroing in on a handful of serious contenders, all of whom were white men. In landing on Mr. Walz, she sided with a low-key partner who has proven himself as a champion for Democratic causes.

Mr. Walz has been a strong public advocate for Ms. Harris in her campaign against Trump and J.D. Vance, labelling the Republicans “just weird” in an interview last month. Democrats have seized on the message and amplified it since then.

During a fundraiser for Ms. Harris on Monday in Minneapolis, Mr. Walz said: “It wasn’t a slur to call these guys weird. It was an observation.” Mr. Walz, who grew up in the small town of West Point, Nebraska, was a social studies teacher, football coach and union member at Mankato West High School in Minnesota before he got into politics.

He won the first of six terms in Congress in 2006 from a mostly rural southern Minnesota district, and used the office to champion veterans issues. Mr. Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, rising to command sergeant major, one of the highest enlisted ranks in the military.

He ran for Governor in 2018 on the theme of “One Minnesota” and won by more than 11 points.

As Governor, Mr. Walz had to find ways to work in his first term with a legislature that was split between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-led Senate. Minnesota has a history of divided government, though, and the arrangement was surprisingly productive in his first year. But the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota early in his second year, and bipartisan cooperation soon frayed.

Mr. Walz relied on emergency powers to lead the state’s response. Republicans chafed under restrictions that included lockdowns, closing schools and shuttering businesses. They retaliated by firing or forcing out some of his agency heads. But Minnesotans who were stuck at home also got to know Mr. Walz better through his frequent afternoon briefings in the early days of the crisis, which were broadcast and streamed statewide.

Mr. Walz won reelection in 2022 by nearly 8 points over his GOP challenger, Dr. Scott Jensen, a physician and vaccine sceptic. Not only did Mr. Walz win, Democrats kept control of the House and flipped the Senate to win the “trifecta” of full control of both chambers and the Governor’s office for the first time in eight years. A big reason was the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which held that the Constitution doesn’t include a right to abortion. That hurt Minnesota Republicans, especially among suburban women.

“Tim has been in the news because the country and the world is seeing the guy we love so much,” U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar said on Monday.

Ken Martin, Chairman of the Minnesota-Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party said young people he spoke to on the campaign trail were “Walz pilled”.

Also Read | Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race

Mr. Walz and other Democrats went into the 2023 legislative session with an ambitious agenda — and a whopping $17.6 billion budget surplus to help fund it. Their proudest accomplishments included sweeping protections for abortion rights that included the elimination of nearly all restrictions Republicans had enacted in prior years, including a 24-hour waiting period and parental consent requirements. They also enacted new protections for trans rights, making the state a refuge for families coming from out of state for treatment for trans children.

Their other major accomplishments included tax credits for families with children that were aimed at slashing childhood poverty, as well as universal free school breakfasts and lunches for all students, regardless of family income. They also enacted a paid family and medical leave program, legalised recreational marijuana for adults and made it easier to vote.

Republicans complained that Mr. Walz and his fellow Democrats squandered a surplus that would have been better spent on permanent tax relief for everyone. And they’ve faulted the Governor and his administration for lax oversight of pandemic programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Federal prosecutors charged 70 people with defrauding federal food programmes that funded meals for kids during the pandemic out of $250 million on Mr. Walz’s watch. Known as the Feeding Our Future scandal, it’s one of the country’s largest pandemic aid fraud cases. The Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan watchdog, delivered a scathing report in June that said Mr. Walz’s Department of Education “failed to act on warning signs,” did not effectively exercise its authority and was ill-prepared to respond.

Republicans still criticise Mr. Walz for his response to the sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, which included the torching of a police station.

During a May fundraiser in St. Paul, Trump repeated his false claim that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard to quell the violence. “The entire city was burning down. … If you didn’t have me as president, you wouldn’t have Minneapolis today,” Trump said.

It was actually Mr. Walz who gave the order, which he issued in response to requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But within Minnesota, GOP legislators said both Mr. Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were too slow to act. And there was finger-pointing between Mr. Frey and Mr, Walz on who was responsible for not activating the Guard faster.

Mr. Walz has served often as a Biden-Harris surrogate, and has made increasingly frequent appearances on national television. They’ve included an interview on Fox News that irritated Trump so much that he posted on Truth Social, “They make me fight battles I shouldn’t have to fight.” Mr. Walz is also co-chair of the rules committee for the Democratic National Convention. And he led a White House meeting of Democratic Governors with Mr. Biden following the President’s disastrous performance in his debate with Trump.

Putting Mr. Walz on the ticket could help Democrats hold the state’s 10 electoral votes and bolster the party more broadly in the Midwest. No Republican has won a statewide race in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty was re-elected Governor in 2006, but GOP candidates for attorney general and state auditor came close in 2022.

Trump finished just 1.5 percentage points behind Democrat Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016. While Mr. Biden carried Minnesota by more than 7 points in 2020, Trump has taken to falsely claiming that he won the state last time and can do it again.

Minnesota has produced two vice presidents, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale.