Tim Walz

1964-present

Politician Tim Walz is the 41^st governor of Minnesota and was the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee alongside candidate Kamala Harris. Prior to his political career, he was a high school social studies teacher and 24-year member of the Army National Guard. Walz then served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019. He has passed a series of popular legislation as Minnesota governor but received criticism for his response to protests following the death of George Floyd. In July 2024, Harris selected Walz as her running mate for November’s presidential election, which they lost to Donald Trump and JD Vance.

FULL NAME: Timothy James Walz
BORN: April 6, 1964
BIRTHPLACE: West Point, Nebraska
SPOUSE: Gwen Walz (1994-present)
CHILDREN: Hope and Gus
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries

Timothy James Walz was born on April 6, 1964, in West Point, Nebraska. Tim is one of four children born to homemaker Darlene Reiman and James F. Walz, a teacher and school superintendent. He grew up with a sister, Sandy, and two brothers, Jeff and Craig.

Tim largely spent his childhood in rural Valentine, Nebraska, where he enjoyed hunting and participating in sports, including football and basketball. In 1982, the Walzes moved to an even smaller town, Butte, following his father’s lung cancer diagnosis, and Tim attended Butte High School with just over two dozen students in his class.

James died in 1984, the year after Tim graduated, leaving his family in tightened straits due to medical debt. Tim later credited income from Social Security survivor benefits with saving the family from financial ruin. In 2016, the Walzes suffered another tragedy when Tim’s younger brother, Craig, was fatally injured by a falling tree during a storm.

Inspired by his father’s service in the Korean War, Walz joined the U.S. Army National Guard when he was 17. Like his father, he used the G.I. Bill to pay for his education. Walz obtained a bachelor’s degree in social science education from Chadron State College in 1989. He later went back to school and, in 2001, earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Walz remained in the Guard for 24 years, continuing his service throughout his teaching career. In that time, he had temporary postings in the United States and Italy. Walz was eligible for retirement after 20 years but opted to reenlist following the 9/11 attacks. He achieved the rank of Command Sergeant Major, the highest rank for enlisted soldiers, but officially retired, in May 2005, at a lower rank due to his failure to complete coursework related to his promotion.

As a young adult, Walz spent time in Texas and Arkansas, where he worked a series of factory and agricultural jobs before returning to Nebraska in 1987. After his college graduation two years later, Walz spent a year in China, teaching English to high school students as part of a program sponsored by Harvard University. This sparked a lifelong interest in China, a country Walz has since visited several times, including a 1994 school trip he and his wife, who is also a teacher, led shortly after their wedding that served as their honeymoon. The Walzes organized annual education trips to China for his students, and Tim later credited his long experience with the country as key to his understanding of Chinese-American relations.

In 1991, Walz began teaching high school social studies in Alliance, Nebraska. Four years later, he was arrested after being caught speeding. The then-31-year-old Walz failed a sobriety test and eventually pled guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving. Walz credited the arrest with serving as a wake-up call, and he quit drinking soon after. Questions about the incident resurfaced after Kamala Harris selected Walz as her VP choice, including allegations that his staffers purposely misled reporters investigating the arrest during Walz’s first Congressional run in 2006.

Walz moved to Mankato, Minnesota, in 1996, shortly after his marriage, and he and his wife both taught at Mankato West High School. In addition to his geography teaching duties, Walz was an assistant coach of the school’s football team, reviving its fortunes when the team won its first state championship in 1999. Also that year, the popular teacher agreed to students’ request that he serve as faculty advisor for the school’s first gay-straight alliance club, during a period when anti-LGBTQ sentiment was common. Walz resigned his position at Mankato West High School in 2006 as he focused increasingly on his first Congressional campaign.

Gwen and Tim Walz have been married for more than 30 years.

Walz met his future wife, Gwen Whipple, when both were teaching at Nebraska’s Alliance High School. He later noted Whipple had been annoyed by his loud voice that she could hear through the thin divider of their shared classroom. The two began dating and married in June 1994, after which she took his last name to become Gwen Walz.

The couple moved to Gwen’s native Minnesota two years later and began teaching at the same high school. Gwen taught English and coached the debate team. She worked as an educator for more than two decades. When Tim was elected governor, she continued her support for educational issues and criminal justice reform, acting as an unpaid advisor. Gwen became the first Minnesota first lady to have an office in the Minnesota State Capitol. She worked to restore convicted felons’ rights and reduce recidivism by creating a program to access to higher education in prisons.

The Walzes had their first child, Hope, in 2001. Today, their daughter is a social worker. Their son, Gus, was born in 2006, and in 2024, the Walzes opened up about their experiences navigating the challenges associated with his non-verbal learning disorder, anxiety, and ADHD. Tim has frequently discussed the couple’s long road to parenthood and said they turned to IVF to conceive. But the family later clarified that Gwen had used a different, less invasive procedure.

Tim Walz, seen here in 2012, served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before becoming Minnesota governor in 2019.

Walz credited his interest in a political career to an incident at a 2004 Minnesota rally for Republican President George W. Bush, in which Walz and his students were refused entry to the event because one the students was wearing a sticker for Bush’s opponent, Democrat John Kerry. The incident inspired Walz to volunteer for the Kerry campaign and attend a political “bootcamp” for potential candidates for office.

U.S. Representative

In 2006, running on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party ticket, Walz faced off against six-term Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht in the race to represent Minnesota’s 1^st Congressional district—a district that had elected Republicans in 102 of the previous 114 years. Walz made his military service and opposition to the unpopular Iraq War a centerpiece of his campaign, and the political neophyte pulled off an unlikely victory that November, winning 53 percent of the vote. He won reelection five more times before deciding not to run for a seventh term in 2018 in favor of entering the Minnesota’s governor race.

During his Congressional career, Walz earned a reputation for working across the aisle, particularly on issues like veteran’s affairs, rural development, and health care. He backed the Affordable Care Act, legislation aimed at supporting farmers and boosting rural broadband access, and bipartisan bills supporting military families and improving veteran’s benefits.

A lifelong hunter and gun owner, Walz received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association in each of his Congressional races. But his position changed following a series of mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida. In 2017, Walz donated NRA campaign contributions to a veterans’ family charity, renounced his NRA membership, and came out in support of gun control legislation, including universal background checks.

Minnesota Governor

In 2017, Walz entered the race to succeed Mark Dayton as governor of Minnesota, and in 2018, he defeated Republican Jeff Johnson with 53 percent of the vote. As governor, Walz received mixed reviews for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state provided economic support for businesses and individuals. But his administration was also ensnared in a fraud scandal, in which dozens of people used a nonprofit nutrition program as a front to obtain more than $250 million in pandemic-related funding for their personal gain. Walz was never directly implicated in the scheme. Some people also criticized his caution regarding school closures; Minnesota’s schools remain closed longer than most other states.

Walz faced his biggest test as governor after Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, was filmed killing George Floyd, a Black man, in May 2020. Widespread protests over police brutality against people of color spread across the state and quickly became violent. Two days after Floyd’s death, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asked Walz to deploy the National Guard, but Walz waited until the following afternoon to issue deployment orders. Critics charge that Walz’s delay allowed the riots to grow larger and inflict preventable damages and injuries. While many criticized Walz’s delayed response to the riots, others credited some of his decisions. He transferred the case to State Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, which later secured Chauvin’s conviction for murder, and ordered state agencies to pursue a court-ordered agreement intended to reform policing in Minnesota. Significant change has been slow to arrive, according to local leaders.

Despite the controversies, Walz won reelection in 2022. During his second term, Walz has championed a series of progressive initiatives. In 2023, he signed a bill protecting abortion rights, making Minnesota the first state to pass such legislation in the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. That same year, he signed bills permitting undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and decriminalizing marijuana, gun control measures, and legislation to provide all Minnesota students with free school meals.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate in the 2024 election in August.

Following President Joe Biden’s surprise decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, a number of politicians were considered front-runners in replacement candidate Kamala Harris’ search for a vice presidential candidate. This included Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Despite having a much lower national profile, Walz quickly became a favorite within Democratic circles, thanks to a series of media appearances that showcased both his progressive policy stands and his plainspokenness and affable personality.

On August 6, 2024, Vice President Harris announced Walz as her running mate, and on August 21, Walz delivered his acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In his speech, Walz traced his improbable journey, noting his rural roots and early family struggles, the importance of his teaching and military career, and his political achievements as congressman and governor. They faced former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance in the general election.

As with many politicians on the national stage, Walz endured some backlash. Much of the controversy has surrounded his military service. During his first Congressional race, as news broke of a possible mobilization to Iraq, Walz stated in March 2005 he would serve if his battalion was deployed, but ultimately, he resigned from the National Guard that May. Critics later charged Walz with shirking his service duty given that his unit received a mobilization order just months later, in August 2005. The VP pick’s supporters defended his military record and accused his opponents of “swiftboating” Walz, a nod to the unfounded attacks on Vietnam War veteran John Kerry during his 2004 presidential race.

Critics also charged that Walz used his higher rank of Command Sergeant Major in campaign materials and interviews, failing to correct the record about his official lower rank at retirement. Elsewhere, Walz was challenged on whether he similarly gave the false impression that he had served in the Iraq War when his unit had been assigned a support role in Italy.

Projections of a close election ultimately didn’t materialize. Trump and Vance swept many battleground states on their way to a decisive victory. As Harris conceded the race, Walz also acknowledged their loss on social media.

• On the change to his position on gun reform: I’m a veteran, a hunter, and a gun owner. But I’m also a dad. And for many years, I was a teacher. It’s about keeping our kids safe. I had an A rating from the NRA. Now I get straight F’s. And I sleep just fine.
• Never underestimate a public school teacher.
• We made sure that every kid in our state gets breakfast and lunch every day. So while other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours.
• During his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech: I have given a lot of pep talks. So let me finish with this, team. It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense, and we’ve got the ball. We’re driving down the field.

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Barbara Maranzani

Freelance Writer

Barbara Maranzani is a New York–based writer and producer. She is a frequent contributor to HISTORY and Biography.com, covering American and European history, politics, pop culture, and more. In her free time, she enjoys planning and plotting her next travel adventure.