Kamala Harris names Tim Walz as her vice-presidential running ...
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate in the 2024 US election.
She has not yet made the call to Mr Walz, and her campaign has not yet publicly confirmed the selection.
What's next?An official announcement is expected on Tuesday morning, local time.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate in the 2024 election, according to US media reports.
She has not yet made the call to Mr Walz, and her campaign has not yet publicly confirmed the selection.
An official announcement is expected on Tuesday morning, local time.
She will introduce Mr Walz at a rally on Tuesday evening in Philadelphia, then kick off a five-day swing state tour.
The 60-year-old second-term governor's selection comes after days of intense speculation.
Mr Walz is seen as a plain-talking Midwesterner who can appeal to rural voters.
The former school teacher served 12 years in the US Congress before being elected governor in 2018.
He also served in the Army National Guard and coached football.
He recently gained national attention with his description of the Republican opposition as "weird".
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 is joining Ms Harris following President Joe Biden's decision to end his re-election campaign.
The surprise move forced Ms Harris to unify Democrats and consider potential running mates during an exceedingly compressed time frame.
Meanwhile, Republicans have rallied around presidential nominee Donald Trump after his attempted assassination in July.
Trump's chosen running mate is Ohio senator JD Vance.
Ms Harris was the only Democratic candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by a deadline last week.
She officially claimed the nomination Monday night when the Democratic National Committee released final results.
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.
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 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.
ABC/wires
Posted 1 hours agoTue 6 Aug 2024 at 1:04pm, updated 10 minutes agoTue 6 Aug 2024 at 1:59pm
