United States Vice-President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has announced Tim Walz, as her running mate.
Walz, a 60-year-old US Army National Guard veteran and former teacher, was a member of the US House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019, before he was elected governor of Minnesota — a position he has held for the past five years.
He is who has focused on free school meals, goals for tackling climate change, tax cuts for the middle class and expanded paid leave for Minnesota workers. Walz has also been a long-time advocate for .
While Walz was relatively unknown at a national level, he hasrecently received much media attention for his jabs against and his running mate, . Walz criticised Trump and Vance as "weird", saying they're "running for He-Man Woman-Haters Club or something".
"Weird" has since become a common criticism levelled against Trump and Vance by Democrats.
Professor Rodrigo Praino, a politics and public policy researcher from Flinders University, told SBS News Harris' choice of running mate had surprised him. He expected that Harris would choose Pennsylvania's governor Josh Shapiro, who had been named as a possible pick. However, her decision might have simply come down to Harris' relationship with Walz.
"It seems that Walz and Harris connected much better than Shapiro and Harris, you know, it's kind of that immaterial thing," Praino said. "Two people meet in a room and sometimes they hit it off," he said.
Shortly after announcing Walz as her running mate, Harris — the current vice-president — appeared at a rally in Pennsylvania alongside him, introducing Walz to a crowd of more than 10,000 packed into an arena at Temple University.
Walz described his upbringing in a small Nebraska town, as well as the beginnings of his political career.
"It was my students who encouraged me to run for office," he said. "They saw in me what I was hoping to instil in them: a commitment of common good, a belief that one person can make a difference."
Tim Walz is the US state of Minnesota's current governor. Source: Getty / Michael Reynolds/EPA
Trump's running mate JD Vance said of Harris' choice: "When given the opportunity she will bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party."
How nominees pick their running mates
Praino said most of the time, presidential candidates will choose a vice-president that brings something to the ticket that the candidate can not provide.
"If you go back to Eisenhower, 1952, a candidate with very little political experience, what do you do? You put Richard Nixon on (the ticket) — very, very much a party insider in there. Or if you think of John Kennedy in 1960, again a very young candidate with relatively little experience in politics, what do you do? You put Lydon Johnson, an older very prominent party figure in there to balance off these things," he said.
When was making his first bid for the presidency in 2020, Praino said he chose Harris because she represented aspects of the US that he could not cover, including being from the West Coast, while Biden was from the East Coast, as well as being the first women and the first person of colour to be chosen as a vice-presidential candidate.
Ava Kalinauskas, a research associate from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, told SBS News Harris likely chose Walz as her running mate because he appeals to a voter base she has less connection to.
"The Republicans have tried to characterise Harris as this San Francisco liberal who is out of touch because she's from a liberal state like California," Kalinauskas said. "So I think there's this perception that he is someone who could appeal to rural voters from Midwestern states, from the rust belt and as a ... more conventional face and less of a diverse representative of the Democratic Party."
"He has this kind of folksy charm and this appeal to rural voters."
Can vice-presidents influence elections?
While there is little evidence that vice-president picks can help to win elections, Kalinauskas said the choice of a running mate can damage campaigns.
Kalinauskas pointed to Republican John McCain's decision to choose Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice-president in his 2008 race against Barack Obama, who won the election.
"She faced all this criticism for her perceived lack of experience," Kalinauskas said of Palin. "She had these media gaffes, and she became quite a caricature in popular media, which painted her as really inexperienced and out of touch."
"There was a popular belief that she really damaged the campaign."
Obama won 67.8 per cent of the electoral vote that year, while McCain won 32.2 per cent.
John McCain (right) chose Alaska's then-governor Sarah Palin (left) as his running mate in the 2008 presidential race against Barack Obama, who chose Joe Biden as his pick for vice-president. Source: AFP, Getty / Robyn Beck/AFP
What role do vice-presidents play in presidential campaigns?
While vice-president picks rarely influence the success of a campaign, Praino said they can play an important political role and can speak more freely because they face less scrutiny than presidential candidates.
"Presidential candidates used to call the VP (vice-president) their attack dog," Praino said. "It was the candidate who could say things that a presidential candidate couldn't necessarily say because that would make that person look unpresidential."
Trump's vice-president pick
Trump announced Vance as his vice-presidential running mate at the start of the Republican National Convention in July.
Vance is known for writing the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, in which he wrote about his Appalachian family and modest upbringing. He entered politics in 2021 and, after being endorsed by Trump, went on to win a Republican primary and the general election.
In the past Vance has opposed Trump, calling him an "idiot", "noxious" and "reprehensible".
However, in recent years he has positioned himself as loyal to Trump's policies by, among other things, opposing immigration.
Kalinauskas believes Trump picked Vance as his running mate as a show of youth and energy against Biden, who was still in the race for the White House at that point. Vance is 40 years old and presented as a contrast to the two candidates at the time: Trump, 78 and Biden, 81.
She said Trump might have "buyer's remorse" over Vance, as he is not polling as well as the Republicans might have hoped in key areas.
Praino said while Vance "doesn't seem to be adding a tonne to the Trump campaign", it's unlikely that he will have a broadly damaging effect on Trump's bid for the presidency.
