Army veteran who once taught in China amid Tiananmen Square unrest — who is Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz?

Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday in a bid to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states. The decision comes less than a month after Harris was thrust abruptly into the spotlight following the exit of President Joe Biden.

“I am proud to announce that I've asked Tim Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his. It's great to have him on the team,” the VP wrote on X.

The second-term Minnesota governor has been a champion of liberal goals and served 24 years in domestic and overseas deployments with the US military. Walz has represented southern Minnesota in the US House of Representatives for a dozen years and previously taught high school in both China and America.

A relative political unknown for Americans until recently, he had grabbed eyeballs recently after criticising Trump and running mate JD Vance as “weird” — an unusual moniker that appears to have gotten deeply under Trump's skin.

Over the years Walz has helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state — including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families. He led efforts to tackle the upheaval that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and also came under scrutiny for expanding vaccinations across his state amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Walz signed a law making marital rape illegal as the state's top executive and has reportedly also signed laws that helped illegal migrants secure free healthcare and tuition. He also presided over several years of budget surpluses in Minnesota on the road to his 2022 re-election.

Walz grew up in a small Nebraska town and enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was just 17. He retired in 2005 as a command sergeant major with a field artillery battalion — one of the military's highest enlisted ranks. Walz taught in China around the time of the 1989 Tiananmen Square unrest before moving to Minnesota with his wife in the mid-1990s. Walz was also a social studies teacher, football coach and union member at Mankato West High School in Minnesota before he got into politics.

(With inputs from agencies)