Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted his party’s nomination for vice president Wednesday night, using his Democratic National Convention address to thank the packed arena for “bringing the joy” to an election transformed by the elevation of his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We’re all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason: We love this country,” Walz said as thousands of delegates hoisted vertical placards reading “Coach Walz” in red, white and blue.
Many Americans had never heard of Walz until Harris made him her running mate, and the speech was an opportunity to introduce himself. He leaned into his experiences as a football coach, his time in the National Guard and his recounting of his family’s fertility struggles — all parts of his biography that Republicans have questioned in the days since Harris picked him.
While it’s unclear if the speech will attract new voters, he further charmed Democratic supporters with his background and helped to balance Harris’ coastal roots as a cultural representative of Midwestern states whose voters she needs this fall.
The Harris campaign said Walz had worked on his speech for multiple days and he used a teleprompter for the first time, practicing to ensure he was prepared. He told the crowd, “I haven’t given a lot of speeches like this but I’ve given a lot of pep talks.”
“Some folks just don’t understand what it takes to be a good neighbor,” Walz said. “Take Donald Trump and JD Vance.”
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, bashed the convention as a “charade” earlier Wednesday and noted that he has been a frequent topic of conversation. He also singled out his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, for a highly critical convention speech Tuesday night, saying Obama had been “nasty.”
Walz lays out his biography
Walz described his upbringing in Nebraska and teaching and coaching football in Minnesota and told the crowd, “Thank you for bringing the joy to this fight.”
But he also criticized Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, and took several swipes at Republican policies. “While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” he said.
Walz has been accused of embellishing his background. His wife this week clarified that she did not undergo in vitro fertilization, as Walz has repeatedly claimed, but used other fertility treatments. Republicans also have criticized Walz for a 2018 comment he made about carrying weapons in war. Though he served in the National Guard for 24 years, he did not deploy to a war zone.
Walz has made his family’s struggle with fertility a central part of his narrative, a tangible way to connect with voters alarmed at the erosion of reproductive rights in the U.S. But Gwen Walz on Tuesday issued a statement that detailed the experience more comprehensively and disclosed that they relied on a different process known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI.
“If you’ve never experienced infertility, I guarantee you know someone who has,” Tim Walz said Wednesday.
His daughter, Hope, made a heart with her hands and held it over her chest.
His son, Gus, openly wept throughout the speech, wiping his eyes with tissues while watching from the front row.
Through tears he mouthed, “That’s my dad.”
The Bill and Oprah Show
Two prominent Harris boosters on Wednesday were people Trump has crossed paths during their shared decades in public life: Bill Clinton, the nation’s 42nd president, and Oprah Winfrey, the iconic talk-show host.
Ironically, she suggested years ago that Trump could be president one day, while Clinton was once close enough to Trump that he attended his 2005 wedding to his wife Melania.
In a convention designed to needle Trump, Clinton and Winfrey portrayed Trump as selfish and Harris as focused on the needs of everyday Americans rather than her own.
“We’ve got a pretty clear choice it seems to me. Kamala Harris, for the people. And the other guy who has proved, even more than the first go-around, that he’s about me, myself and I,” Clinton said.
Clinton returned to a place he knows well, the Democratic convention stage, firing up his party with his trademark off-the-cuff flourishes. He spoke about 10 minutes longer than Walz did in the headliner’s spot.
Now 78 — the same age as Trump — Clinton’s delivery was sometimes halting, his movements slower, and he mispronounced Harris’ first name twice. His left hand often shook when he wasn’t using it to grip the lectern.
Still, he delivered several memorable, homespun pronouncements including asking: “What does her opponent do with his voice? He mostly talks about himself. So the next time you hear him, don’t count the lies, count the I’s.”
Winfrey — who long filmed her famous talk show in Chicago — offered a full-throated endorsement of Harris and characterized her campaign by singing out, “Joy!”
“Decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024,” she said, adding, “Let us chose common sense over nonsense.”