4 takeaways from Tim Walz’s first campaign speech as Kamala Harris’s running mate

Hours after being named as Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz introduced himself to American voters Tuesday with a forceful speech at a Philadelphia rally in which he sought to portray the Democratic ticket as full of optimism and “joy.”

At a rally at Temple University, Walz was introduced by the woman who selected him as her prospective vice president. Harris, the current vice president touted his military service, his years spent as a teacher and a high school football coach, his vote in Congress to help pass the Affordable Care Act, his signing a law that codified abortion rights in Minnesota after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and his expansion of gun restrictions in that state.

Harris told the audience that Walz, who served in Congress from 2007 to 2019 before being elected governor in 2019, “will be ready on day one.” Comparing Walz and former President Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance was “like a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad.”

Here are the key takeaways from Walz’s speech:

Reintroducing Harris

When she wasn’t speaking about Walz, Harris stuck to her standard stump speech, portraying herself as a former prosecutor and former attorney general who was familiar with what she said were criminal types like Trump. But Walz also used Tuesday’s speech before a large audience to try to introduce optimistic contours to that bio.

“Thank you, Madam Vice President, for the trust you put in me, but, maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy,” he said.

Harris, Walz added, “has fought on the side of the American people.”

“She took on the predators, she took on the fraudsters, she took down the transnational gangs,” he said. “She stood up against powerful corporate interests and she never hesitated to reach across the aisle if it meant improving peoples’ lives.”

Reflecting the renewed energy expressed by Democrats since Harris replaced President Biden as the party’s candidate, as well as the Republican attacks on the vice president’s laugh, Walz reiterated that she approached her job “with a sense of joy.”

A commitment to country and community

“I was born in West Point, Nebraska. I lived in Butte, a small town of 400, where community was a way of life. Growing up, I spent the summers working on the family farm. My mom and dad taught us, ‘show generosity to your fellow neighbors and work for a common good.’”

Walz recounted joining the Army National Guard at the age of 17. “For 24 years, I proudly wore the uniform of this nation,” he said.

“The National Guard gave me purpose,” he said. “It gave me the strength of a shared commitment, of something greater than ourselves.”

Walz also made clear that he viewed the remaining three months of the presidential campaign as a continuation of that service.

“So we got 91 days. My God, that’s easy,” he said. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

‘Don’t ever underestimate teachers’

Both Harris and Walz leaned heavily on his background as a social studies teacher and a football coach at a public high school. Walz also noted how integrated that profession had been with his family.

“I can’t wait for all of you in America to get to know my incredible wife, Gwen, a 29-year public school educator,” Walz said. “Don’t ever underestimate teachers.”

“My dad was a teacher,” he added. “My brothers and sisters and I followed in his footsteps. Three out of four of us married teachers. [It’s] what we do.”

Having been a teacher for nearly 20 years, Walz said that it was his students who “encouraged me to run for office. They saw in me what I was hoping to instill in them a commitment in common good. A belief that one person can make a difference.”

“And because high school teachers are super optimistic, I was running in a district that had one Democrat since 1892,” he added.

‘Weird as hell’

During his own warm-up speech at the rally, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro all but acknowledged that Walz’s folksy attack on Trump and Vance as “weird” had influenced Harris’s decision to pick Walz as her running mate.

“Tim Walz, in his beautiful Midwestern, plain-spoken way, he summed up JD Vance the best,” Shapiro said. “He's a weirdo."

When it was his turn to speak, Walz backed up that assessment with a few zingers that bolstered the themes of his speech.

“Now, Donald Trump sees the world a little differently than us. First of all, he doesn’t know the first thing about service. He doesn’t have time for it because he’s too busy serving himself,” he said at one point.

“Make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump — that’s not even counting the crimes he committed,” he added.

On the topic of reproductive rights, Walz underlined his Midwestern values.

“In Minnesota we respect our neighbors and the personal choices that they make, even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves. There’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” he said.

Turning to Vance, Walz brought the “weird” attack full circle.

“I can’t wait to debate the guy, that is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz said in reference to a salacious (and debunked) rumor about Vance, resulting in the night’s biggest response from the crowd. “I gotta tell you, pointing out just an observation of mine that I made, I just have to say it. You know it, you feel it: These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell.”

Cover thumbnail photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images