Lucie Aubourg – Agence France-Presse in Washington
Published at 7:18 a.m. Updated at 12:19 p.m.
- United States
Kamala Harris said she was “proud” Tuesday to have chosen Tim Walz as her running mate in the race for the White House, the vice president turning to a white governor from the “Midwest” to second her in her campaign against Donald Trump.
With just three months to go before the election, the duo formed by the Democratic candidate and the man who would become her vice president in the event of victory in November has little time to convince voters.
“This is the honor of a lifetime,” said Tim Walz, 60, promising to “give it my all,” and adding wryly, “It reminds me a little bit of the first day of school.”
Not exactly known outside the state of Minnesota, where he is governor, this former schoolteacher and football coach has an unusual background.
“As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran,” Tim Walz “has stood up for working families like his,” Harris said.
A former National Guard soldier, he comes from a rural background, unlike the vice president, which could appeal to a broader electorate among undecided voters.
Seen as a moderate, he has also taken steps labeled progressive, such as legalizing recreational marijuana use and strengthening controls on the purchase of firearms — all while claiming to be a hunter.
Donald Trump's campaign team immediately responded by calling Tim Walz a “dangerous extreme leftist.”
Anticipating these attacks, influential Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday morning on MSNBC that defining Tim Walz “as being on the left” was “surreal.” He is “right in the middle,” she argued.
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Tour of key states
Tim Walz should be present for a first meeting in tandem with the vice-president on Tuesday evening in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — one of the key states that brought Joe Biden to the White House in 2020.
The two will continue with several other pivotal states of here on Saturday, for a tour which should set the tone of their understanding and their complementarity.
Mid-August, they will celebrate their inauguration during the major Democratic convention planned for Chicago.
Kamala Harris, who would become the first black woman elected president of the United States if she wins, had only two weeks to choose her running mate, after the thunderbolt of Joe Biden's withdrawal of candidacy on July 21.
An accelerated selection process compared to the long months usually taken to dissect every aspect of the lives of the various contenders.
The list of possible running mates included several other white men, including Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, and Mark Kelly, former astronaut turned senator from Arizona.
Momentum to maintain
Since entering the race just two weeks ago, Kamala Harris has caught up with Joe Biden's deficit to Donald Trump in voting intentions and has seen the amounts raised for her campaign soar, marking a flawless start. But she will have to succeed in maintaining this momentum over the next three months.
In mid-July, a few days after being the victim of an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance, a 40-year-old senator from Ohio, another industrial state in the “Midwest,” as his running mate.
But the latter has been embroiled in controversy, proving to be more of a thorn in his side than an asset for the time being.
In the coming days, Mr. Vance is due to travel to some of the same states as the Democratic duo, to speak for the Trumpist camp, which accuses Ms. Harris in particular of being responsible for the migrant crisis.
Donald Trump, who recently accused his opponent—born to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother—of having “become black” by political calculation, also blamed him on Monday for the troubles of the American stock markets, which were at one time on the verge of panic.
The Democratic candidate, who is campaigning on protecting abortion rights, sums up the election with one question: “What kind of country do we want to live in? ? A country of freedom, compassion and the rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate ?”