Image: Governor Tim Walz speaking at a campaign rally for Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona by Gage Skidmore via flickr
Only three months ago, former president Donald Trump had not yet announced who would be his running mate in the 2024 United States presidential election. President Joe Biden was still in the running with Vice President Kamala Harris as his vice president.
Since then, Trump has announced J.D. Vance as his running mate and Biden has withdrawn from the election. Harris has stepped up to replace him and announced Tim Walz to run alongside her. While both Vance and Walz are heavily and obviously outshined by their party’s front-runners in terms of media coverage and public discussion, it is important that voters are familiar with who will be second in command of the nation.
J.D. Vance
On July 15, 2024, the first day of the Republican National Convention and just two days after an assassination attempt, Trump announced that Vance would be his running mate, as reported by Associated Press News. On the third day of the convention, Vance gave his first public address after being chosen by Trump, sharing a bit about his background and why he is fit for the position.
To briefly summarize his past, Vance was born and raised in a low-income household in Middletown, Ohio. After graduating high school, he joined the U.S. Marines in 2003, serving as a military journalist. In 2005, he was deployed to Iraq for half a year, where he wrote articles and took photographs. This was a very important time in his life, as he calls back to them saying that it “taught me how to live like an adult,” as reported by Stripes. While he did not see any action, he did achieve the rank of corporal and received a few awards.
Utilizing the G.I. Bill, he attended Ohio State University starting in 2007 and Yale Law School in 2010. While attending Yale, Professor Amy Chua inspired him to write his own memoir, which would become “Hillbilly Elegy.” The book talked about his upbringing and described “Appalachian culture,” which he described it as loyal but also abusive. He recounts his fractured family and how it seemed that those who behaved poorly were rewarded with government sponsored welfare. Once published, it received significant acclaim and even went on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2016 and 2017.
In 2021, Vance ran for U.S. senator of Ohio and won the election, taking office in January 2023. In July 2023, Vance and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill that would criminalize anyone who was involved in giving gender-affirming care to a minor, according to the Marshall Project.
The following June, he showed his support for the dismantle DEI Act which, according to The Hill, would “eliminate all federal DEI programs and end DEI-related funding for agencies, contractors, organizations and educational accreditation agencies that receive federal funding.” Since becoming the vice presidential candidate, Vance has not attended a single U.S. Senate vote.
Tim Walz
On Aug. 6, 2024, Harris selected Governor Tim Walz to be her vice president, only 16 days after she became the new Democratic nominee. Publicly, he was not well known, but despite that, he became popular quickly after he called Trump and the Republicans “weird,” as reported by Associated Press News. While this did give him a favorable start, voters should still be made aware of his background before they decide on who to vote for.
Walz was born in West Point, Neb., living most of his early years in small towns. After graduating high school in 1982, he spent several years drifting between colleges and the Army National Guard of Texas and Arkansas. He served for 24 years and was posted around the world. Walz graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska in 1989 and taught for one year in Guangdong, China. After returning, he taught in Alliance, Neb. and was named Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce.
In 2005, Walz decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives for Minnesota and thus retired from the National Guard. His former unit was deployed to Iraq 10 months after Walz retired, and some have used this to state that he retired for this reason. However, The Minnesota National Guard stated that Walz had retired two months before his unit got the notice. Walz went on to win the election and held the position until 2019, when he decided to run for governor of Minnesota.
In his first week in the House, he supported a bill that would raise the minimum wage, amongst other progressive ideas. Walz was outspoken against the Iraq war but voted in favor of a bill that would give $95 billion to fund the war, reported by NPR. When asked about this, he stated that he wanted the bill to pass so the money could protect the soldiers, saying: “This is a terrible choice that has to be made, but I’m not going to risk the soldiers not getting what they need,” according to Newspaper.com. In a study created by the Lugar Center reported by Wisconsin Independent, Walz ranked as the seventh most bipartisan house member.
After becoming governor in 2019, then President Donald Trump appointed him to the bipartisan Council of Governors. After the murder of George Floyd on May 26, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minn, CBS news reported that Tim Walz called the actions taken by the police “disturbing” and “sickening.” To quell the riots, he called in the Minnesota National Guard, which Trump praised him for, calling him an “excellent guy,” according to CNN. After facing some backlash, Walz pushed for statewide police reform and accountability.
As it would be impossible to cover every aspect of both candidates in a single article, voters should look deeper into both vice presidential candidates and decide on which candidate they view as the better option.
Geoff Soland is a fourth-year History major with minors in Journalism and Museum Studies.