Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher and native of rural Nebraska, is scheduled to formally accept the vice presidential nomination on the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday and speak to the largest audience of his political career.
The speech will be a major test of Vice President Kamala Harris' decision to choose the gregarious, little-known Midwestern governor as her running mate just 15 days ago, and it will also be Walz's biggest opportunity yet to promote himself to the nation.
Harris picked Walz after a rigorous, abbreviated vetting process two weeks after Biden dropped out of the presidential race, and his name emerged among other familiar candidates from key battleground states, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.
Though popular at home, Waltz was little known nationally until he criticized Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, as “crazy people.” The remark proved surprisingly effective in embarrassing the notoriously foul-mouthed former president and catapulted the outspoken Waltz to national prominence.
Trump's speech is expected to focus on his rural upbringing, his time in the Army National Guard and his career as a public school teacher and football coach, and is likely to underscore his oft-stated desire to bring joy back to national politics in the face of what Democrats describe as his attempts to stoke fear and anger.
Walz's predecessors were former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco native, and former President Bill Clinton.
Before being elected governor in 2018, Walz served six terms in Congress representing Minnesota's rural, Republican-leaning 1st Congressional District.
Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before leaving the military in 2005 and running for Congress. Republicans, led by Vance, a former Marine, have harshly criticized Walz's military record, accusing him of abandoning his unit just before it was due to deploy to Iraq and of inflating his military rank for political gain.
Waltz retired from the Army in May 2005, two months before his unit received orders to deploy to Iraq. He was promoted to command sergeant major, the Army's highest rank, but retired as a command sergeant major because he did not complete the coursework required to maintain the rank of master sergeant.
The Trump campaign released a letter on Wednesday signed by 50 Republican lawmakers with military backgrounds criticizing Trump for his “flagrant misrepresentations” about his military service.
Democrats have emphasized Waltz's rural background, praising him as a contrast to Vance, who began his political rise with “Hillbilly Elegy,” a best-selling memoir about his impoverished upbringing in the Rust Belt and Appalachia.
The party has embraced his persona as a Midwestern dad, who hunts, offers car-fixing advice, brags about his tater tot hot dish recipe and even gets a call from Harris asking him to be her running mate while wearing a camo baseball cap. (The campaign quickly began selling camo Harris-Waltz hats, which quickly sold out.)
Former President Barack Obama joked about Walz's outfit at the party convention on Tuesday night, saying, “The flannel shirt he's wearing isn't from a political consultant. It's from his closet, and you can tell a lot has happened to it.”
In the audience, Waltz's wife, Gwen, nodded heartily.
