Minnesota governor Tim Walz – who has been selected by Kamala Harris as her running mate in the race for the White House – is a military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state.
These measures included sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.
The 60-year-old has taken on greater national visibility since a 2023 legislative session that he called one of the most consequential and productive in state history.
He was elected chair of the Democratic Governors Association in December, has served often as a Joe Biden-Harris advocate and has made increasingly frequent appearances on national television.
Mr Walz 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.
During 24 years of service in the Army National Guard, he rose to command sergeant major, one of the highest enlisted ranks in the military.
When first elected governor in 2018, Mr Walz had to find ways to work 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.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic hit Minnesota early in his second year and bipartisan co-operation soon frayed.
He won re-election by nearly eight points in 2022 and Democrats kept control of the House and flipped the Senate to win full control of both chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in eight years.
Mr Walz and other Democrats went into the 2023 legislative session with an ambitious agenda — and a whopping 17.6 billion dollar budget surplus to help fund it.
Their proudest accomplishments included sweeping protections for abortion rights.
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.
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.
