Gus Walz

Early life and education

Timothy James Walz was born on April 6, 1964, in West Point, Nebraska, at Memorial Hospital. His mother, Darlene Rose Reiman, was a homemaker and grew up on a farm. His father, James Frederick Walz, was a teacher and school superintendent who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, and had worked in the family's butcher shop as a child. Walz is of German, Swedish, Luxembourgish, and Irish descent; in 1867 his great-great-grandfather Sebastian Walz emigrated to the United States from Kuppenheim, Germany. One of his grandmothers was Swedish American, and one of his great-grandmothers was Irish American. He was raised Catholic.

Walz and his three siblings grew up in Valentine, Nebraska, a small rural town in the north-central part of the state, in an area of farms and ranchland near the South Dakota border. In school, he played football and basketball and ran track. After school, he went hunting with his friends. While Walz was in high school, his father, who was the school superintendent and a chain smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer. After his father's diagnosis, his family moved to the rural farming community of Butte, Nebraska to be closer to his mother's relatives. During summers, Walz worked on the family farm. He graduated from Butte High School in 1982 in a class of 25 students and then went to Chadron, Nebraska for college.

Walz's father died in January 1984, leaving his mother and younger brother dependent on Social Security survivor benefits for support. He was devastated and drifted from Nebraska to Texas, where he took courses at the University of Houston in East Asian studies and served in the Texas Army National Guard. Then he went to Jonesboro, in northeast Arkansas, where he built tanning beds in a factory and was an instructor in the Arkansas Army National Guard.

Walz returned to Nebraska in 1987 to continue his education at Chadron State College; he participated in student government there and was an honor student. He graduated in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science degree in social science education. Walz received his master's degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato. In 2001, he wrote his master's thesis, "Improving Human Rights and Genocide Studies in the American High School Classroom", which focused on Holocaust and genocide education. He began a Doctor of Education at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, but did not complete it.

Early career

Teaching

After graduating from Chadron State College, Walz accepted a one-year teaching position with WorldTeach at Foshan No.1 High School in Guangdong, China. He went to teach in August 1989, following the Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent government crackdown in June of that year. Upon returning to the U.S., Walz became a teacher and coach in Alliance, a town of 10,000 in western Nebraska, and in 1993 was named an Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce.

While working as a teacher, Walz met his wife, Gwen Whipple, a fellow teacher, and in 1994 the two married. Two years later, they moved to Mankato, Minnesota, in Gwen's home state. Walz worked as a geography teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School. The football team had lost 27 straight games when he joined the coaching staff as a defensive coordinator. Three years later, in 1999, the team won its first state championship.

In 1999, Walz agreed to be the faculty advisor of Mankato West High School's first gay–straight alliance. He felt it was important that as a married, heterosexual football coach and soldier, he could show how different worlds can coexist. For nine years he and his wife ran Educational Travel Adventures, which organized summer educational trips to China for high-school students. Walz earned a master of science in experiential education from Minnesota State University, Mankato, in 2002, writing his master's thesis on Holocaust education. In March 2006, he took a leave of absence from teaching to run for Congress.

Military service

With his father's encouragement, Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard two days after he turned 17. His father had served during the Korean War and earned his education degree with the G.I. Bill; he wanted his son to have the same opportunity.

Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years after enlisting in 1981. During his military career, he was posted in Arkansas, Texas, near the Arctic Circle in Norway; New Ulm, Minnesota, northwest of Mankato; Italy, and elsewhere. He trained in heavy artillery. During his service, he worked in disaster response postings following floods and tornadoes and was deployed overseas. In 1989, he earned the title of Nebraska Citizen-Soldier of the Year.

After Walz completed the 20 years of service needed to retire from the Guard, he reenlisted instead of retiring, later citing the September 11 attacks as the reason for his reenlistment. He was able to retire in August 2002. In August 2003, he deployed with the Minnesota National Guard to Vicenza, Italy, for nine months, to serve with the European Security Force as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Walz attained the rank of command sergeant major near the end of his service and briefly was the senior enlisted soldier of 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery Regiment. His decorations include the Army Commendation Medal, two Army Achievement Medals, two National Defense Service Medals, a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and an Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal with five oak leaf clusters.

On February 10, 2005, Walz filed official documents to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. In March, the National Guard announced a possible deployment of around 2,000 soldiers from across the Minnesota National Guard to Iraq sometime in the next two years. Walz said he would deploy if called upon. The National Guard finished processing his retirement paperwork in May, and Walz retired from military service on May 16. He later explained that he retired in order to focus on his campaign for Congress and did not want to violate the Hatch Act, which forbids some political activities by federal government employees. The Minnesota National Guard confirmed that Walz retired two months before his former unit was notified on July 14 of its potential deployment to Iraq. That unit received its mobilization order in August and deployed to Iraq in March 2006, ten months after Walz retired.

Political involvement

Walz became first active in politics in August 2004, when he volunteered for John Kerry's presidential campaign. He was inspired to volunteer in the presidential election after he took a group of students to a George W. Bush rally in Mankato, and was angered by the security team's questioning of his students' politics after they saw a Kerry sticker on a student's wallet. He was appointed the Kerry campaign's coordinator for his county, as well as a district coordinator of Vets for Kerry. In January 2005, Walz completed the three-day campaigns and elections crash course at Camp Wellstone, a program run by Wellstone Action, the nonprofit organization Mark and David Wellstone created to carry on the work of their parents, Paul and Sheila Wellstone.

U.S. House of Representatives (2007–2019)

Elections

On February 10, 2005, Walz filed to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota's 1st congressional district. The district consisted mostly of Republican-leaning independents. He had no opponent for the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) nomination in the 2006 primary election. In the general election, he faced Republican Gil Gutknecht, a six-term incumbent. During the campaign, Walz accused Gutknecht of extending tax cuts to "Wall Street" and sought to tie Gutknecht to President George W. Bush.

A centerpiece of Walz's campaign was opposition to the Iraq War, as the war's popularity was declining that year. Walz won the election with 53% of the vote. After his victory, Politico said Gutknecht had been caught "off guard" and Walz had "resolved never to get caught like that himself.... He packaged himself as a moderate from Day One, built an office centered on constituent service and carved out a niche as a tireless advocate for veterans."

Walz was reelected in 2008 with 63% of the vote, becoming only the second non-Republican to win a second full term in the district. He won a third term in 2010 with 49% of the vote in a three-way race against Republican state representative Randy Demmer and independent former diplomat Steve Wilson. He was reelected by comfortable margins in 2012 and 2014. In 2016, Walz was narrowly reelected to a sixth term, defeating Republican Jim Hagedorn by 0.7% (or 2,548 votes), even as his district overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in the concurrent presidential election. Walz did not seek a seventh term in 2018, instead running for governor.

Congressional tenure

Swearing in at the beginning of the 110th Congress, Walz became the highest-ranking retired enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress, as well as only the fourth Democrat/DFLer to represent his district. The others were Thomas Wilson (1887–1889), William Harries (1891–1893), and Tim Penny (1983–1995). Even as he represented a district that had usually voted Republican, pundits described Walz's policy positions as ranging from moderate to progressive.

In his first month in Congress, Walz was appointed to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Agriculture Committee, and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a special waiver exempting him from the order that barred most freshman members of Congress from serving on more than two committees. That same year, he was appointed to the Armed Services Committee. In his first week as a legislator, Walz cosponsored a bill to raise the minimum wage, voted for stem cell research, voted to allow Medicare to negotiate pharmaceutical prices, and voiced support for pay-as-you-go budget rules, requiring that new spending or tax changes not add to the federal deficit.

An opponent of the Iraq war, Walz opposed the Bush administration's plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq in 2007. But he voted in favor of a bill in May of that year that provided nearly $95 billion in funding for the war through September 30. Walz explained that his vote was to ensure the safety of American troops while also saying he would continue to negotiate a process to pull troops from Iraq. He reiterated his support for ending the war in October and called on those who opposed the war to "have their voice be heard".

During the 2008 financial crisis, Walz repeatedly spoke out against using taxpayer money to bail out financial institutions; in late September, he voted against the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bill, which purchased troubled assets from these institutions. Walz released a statement after the bill's passage, saying: "The bill we voted on today passes the buck when it comes to recouping the losses taxpayers might suffer. I also regret that this bill does not do enough to help average homeowners, or provide sufficient oversight of Wall Street."

In December 2008, Walz voted against the bill that offered $14 billion in government loans to bail out the country's large automobile manufacturers. In June 2009, he introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on the federal government to "relinquish its temporary ownership interests in the General Motors Company and the Chrysler Group, LLC, as soon as possible" and said that the government must not be involved in those companies' management decisions.

Committee assignments

Committee on Agriculture

Agriculture Subcommittee on Forestry

Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development

Committee on Veterans' Affairs (ranking member, 115th Congress)

Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Armed Services Committee

Caucus memberships

Chair, Congressional EMS Caucus

Co-chair, National Guard and Reserve Component Caucus

Co-chair, Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus

Co-chair, Congressional Veterans Jobs Caucus

Member, LGBT Equality Caucus

Member, Congressional Arts Caucus

Commissions

Congressional-Executive Commission on China

Governor of Minnesota (2019–present)

Elections

In March 2017, after Mark Dayton, the incumbent governor, chose not to seek another term, Walz announced he would run for governor. His main opponent in the Democratic primary was originally state representative Erin Murphy, who won the state party endorsement at the party's convention in June 2018. Shortly thereafter, state attorney general Lori Swanson entered the race late in the campaign. Walz defeated Murphy and Swanson in the August primary election with a 41.60% plurality. On November 6, 2018, he was elected governor, defeating the Republican nominee, Hennepin County commissioner Jeff Johnson, 53.84% to 42.43%.

Walz sought reelection in 2022. He won the August 9 Democratic primary and faced Republican nominee Scott Jensen in the November general election. On November 8, 2022, Walz defeated Jensen, 52.3% to 44.6%.

In a June 2025 Minnesota Star Tribune poll, 45% responded that Walz should seek reelection, while 49% believed otherwise. On September 16, 2025, Walz announced his candidacy for a third term as governor, but on January 5, 2026, he withdrew from the race.

Tenure

Walz was sworn in as governor of Minnesota on January 7, 2019, at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul. He took the oath of office alongside the incoming lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan; Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon; Minnesota state auditor Julie Blaha; and Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, all Democrats. Walz spoke about education and healthcare reform in his inauguration speech.

Later in 2019, President Donald Trump appointed Walz to the bipartisan Council of Governors; in 2021 President Joe Biden appointed Walz as a co-chairman of the Council of Governors. In 2023, Walz was named chair of the Democratic Governors Association, a high-profile position that involves supporting other governors in tight races. He stepped down after being selected as Kamala Harris's running mate. Kansas governor Laura Kelly succeeded him as chair.

On May 26, 2020, the day after the murder of George Floyd, Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan demanded justice and called the video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck "disturbing". Walz elaborated, "The lack of humanity in this disturbing video is sickening. We will get answers and seek justice".

In response to riots in Minnesota, Walz partially activated the Minnesota National Guard on May 28, and fully activated it on May 30. President Trump reacted to Walz's actions by saying that he was "very happy" and that he did "fully agree with the way [Walz] handled it ... what [the Minnesota National Guard] did in Minneapolis was incredible". Trump called Walz an "excellent guy". Trump also publicly claimed credit for deploying the Minnesota National Guard; Walz's office said Trump had no impact on Walz's deployments of the Guard.

Several Republicans criticized Walz's initial response to the widespread protests following Floyd's murder. He later responded to the murder by ordering the Minnesota legislature to reconvene for special sessions on legislation for police reform and accountability. After police reform failed to pass the first special session in June, a second special session was held in July. On July 21, the legislature passed police reform legislation. The compromise law includes a limited ban on police from using chokeholds.

It bans "warrior training", which dehumanized people, and includes training for peace officers for dealing with people with autism or in a mental health crisis and de-escalation training for situations that could turn volatile. It also created a special independent unit at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for investigations of fatal police encounters and a community relations advisory council to consult with the Police Officers Standards and Training Board on policy changes. Walz signed the legislation into law on July 23, 2020.

2024 vice presidential campaign

On July 22, 2024, Walz endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris after incumbent president Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race. After a rapid selection process in which the Harris campaign also vetted Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Arizona senator Mark Kelly, Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker, and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (with Shapiro, Kelly and Walz the only three to be interviewed by Harris in person), Harris announced on August 6 that she had chosen Walz as her running mate.

The Democratic National Committee certified Walz's candidacy on the same day it was announced. His selection was praised by an ideologically diverse group of politicians, including progressive Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, centrist independent senator Joe Manchin, and moderate Republican former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan. Walz is credited with first publicly describing Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance as "weird". The term became a popular meme, especially with young people, and has been widely used by Democrats.

No more than a day after Walz was named as Harris's running mate, his political opponents nicknamed him "Tampon Tim" for his 2023 signing of a Minnesota law that mandates that menstrual pads and tampons be provided free of charge in public schools "to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12". Walz's political supporters responded favorably to the nickname and the law, and the editorial board of the Minnesota Star Tribune published a defense of the initiative.

On August 21, 2024, the third day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC), Walz officially accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president. As of October 2024, Walz had a +2.8 favorability rating. The vice-presidential debate was held on October 1 at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City.

The 2024 VP debate was considered a polite and policy-focused event in which Walz and JD Vance agreed with each other on many issues. During the debate, Walz was confronted with recently unearthed statements he had made in which he falsely claimed to have been in Hong Kong for a teaching position during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; in response, he said: "I'm a knucklehead." According to a CBS viewer poll after the debate, Vance led Walz by one percent on the question of who won the debate. Several political pundits declared Vance the winner, including columnists from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Political positions

Walz has been described as holding both moderate and progressive policy stances.

Abortion

Walz supports a legal right to abortion, and has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood. The National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion organization, gave him a rating of zero. In a March 2024 interview with CNN's Kaitlin Collins, he said, "my neighboring states have tried to criminalize women getting health care", and characterized their policies as "a health care crisis", adding that states need to "trust women to make their own health care decisions" and to "understand that abortion is health care". Also during the interview, he said, "I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more. And I think the biggest thing is: listen to women."

Education

As governor, Walz has announced funding for special needs workforce projects. He signed into law the Minnesota Reading to Ensure Academic Development (READ) Act. The act requires school districts to use evidence-based practices to teach reading. Politico wrote, "Walz set out a 'care economy'-driven agenda that prioritized everyday education concerns".

Walz also signed legislation requiring public schools to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all students, giving financial aid to public schools for households earning less than $80,000 a year, and increasing K-12 education spending by $2.2 billion.

Guns

Walz is a gun owner and supports increased regulations on firearms. While in Congress, Walz was a strong supporter of gun rights and was endorsed by the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) multiple times, receiving an A grade from the organization. Following the Parkland high school shooting in 2018, he denounced the NRA in a Star Tribune opinion piece, and announced that he would donate the equivalent of all of the campaign contributions the NRA-PVF had given him—$18,000—to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. As governor, Walz expressed support for gun regulation. In 2023, he signed into law a public safety bill that establishes universal background checks and red-flag laws in Minnesota.

Gaza war

Walz condemned Hamas's October 7 attacks in Israel. He ordered flags to be lowered to half staff in the following days. He has expressed support for a "working cease-fire" in Gaza. After the 2024 Minnesota Democratic presidential primary, in which 19% of voters cast "uncommitted" ballots, Walz took a sympathetic view toward those doing so to protest President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza, calling them "civically engaged".

Of the protests against U.S. funding of the war in Gaza, Walz said: This issue is a humanitarian crisis. They have every right to be heard... These folks are asking for a change in course, they're asking for more pressure to be put on... You can hold competing things: that Israel has the right to defend itself, and the atrocities of October 7 are unacceptable, but Palestinian civilians being caught in this... has got to end.

Walz has been the subject of criticism in several such protests due to his acting role as chair of the Minnesota State Board of Investment. In February 2024, 14 people protesting Minnesota's investments in Israel were cited for trespassing at his residence during a sit-in organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

In July 2024, Walz was criticized by the Minnesota chapters of the Council on American–Islamic Relations and American Muslims for Palestine after he abruptly canceled a meeting with Palestinian Minnesotans who had lost relatives in Gaza. A member of American Muslims for Palestine who was scheduled to meet with Walz said:

He has never, not once, decided to sit down to meet with a Gazan family. He's refused all attempts to sit down and talk to any of us, and he has refused to meet with a single mosque here in Minnesota about what's happening in Gaza.

Minnesota labor unions have similarly urged the State Board of Investment to divest state pension funds from Israel. In October 2024, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees passed a divestment resolution. In April 2025, the union released an additional "Pension Divestment Statement" implicating the State Board of Investment and emphasizing that:

This genocide has been supported not just through our tax dollars and US military aid, but also through investments from our state pension system, which has invested in direct loans—bonds—to the Israeli government and in arms suppliers for the Israeli military.

Labor and workers' rights

In 2023, Walz signed a law banning captive audience meetings and non-compete clauses. The law also mandates paid sick leave for employees and increases safety inspections and ergonomics requirements to reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries for warehouse, meatpacking, and healthcare facility workers. It also grants workers some of the strongest protections against wage theft. In October 2023, Walz joined the striking United Auto Workers' picket line. He is a former member of two teachers' unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Addressing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in August 2024, Walz said, "It's not just a saying, it's a fact: when unions are strong, America is strong."

LGBTQ rights

Walz supports LGBTQ rights, including federal anti-discrimination laws on the basis of sexual orientation. In a 2009 speech, he called for an end to the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. Walz voted in favor of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Sexual Orientation Employment Nondiscrimination Act. In 2007, he received a 90% grade from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ rights organization.

In 2011, Walz announced his support for the Respect for Marriage Act. As governor, he has signed a number of bills that support the LGBTQ community. In 2023, he signed bills that banned the practice of conversion therapy and protected gender-affirming care in Minnesota.

Veterans' issues

Having served 24 years in the Army National Guard, as a freshman in Congress Walz was given a rare third committee membership when he was assigned to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Walz was the lead House sponsor of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, which directs the Veterans Administration to report on veteran mental health care and suicide prevention programs. It also gives the VA permission to provide incentives to psychiatrists who agree to join the VA medical system.

Personal life

Walz and Gwen Whipple met while working as teachers in Nebraska. Their first date was at a movie theater and a Hardee's. They married on June 4, 1994. Tim, who was raised Catholic, became a Lutheran after marrying Gwen. He has called himself a "Minnesota Lutheran" and identified Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, a congregation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, as his family's parish.

Walz's younger brother, Craig, was a high school science teacher in St. Charles, Minnesota. Walz's older brother, Jeff, was a former assistant principal at a middle school in Citrus County, Florida. Walz's older sister, Sandy Dietrich, is a former teacher from Alliance.

In 1995, Walz was arrested for driving 96 miles per hour in a 55 miles per hour zone in Chadron, Nebraska. According to arrest records, he failed a field sobriety test administered by a trooper who smelled alcohol under his breath. Walz's blood alcohol level tested above the legal limit. In 1996, Walz pleaded guilty to a reduced charge for reckless driving, was fined $200, and had his license suspended for 30 days. After the incident, Walz resigned from his coaching position but kept his job as a teacher.

The Walzes underwent fertility treatment at Mayo Clinic for seven years before their children were born. Their daughter, Hope, was born in 2001 and their son, Gus, in 2006. Walz and his wife named Hope after their emotion about the pregnancy.

Walz learned some Mandarin while teaching in China.

Hope graduated from Mankato West High School in 2018 and Montana State University in 2023. She works as a ski instructor at Big Sky Resort and at a homeless shelter in Bozeman, Montana. Hope has appeared in social media campaign ads for Walz. Historian Kate Andersen Brower considers this role unique for a vice-presidential campaign.

Gus attended Saint Paul Central High School. As a teenager he was diagnosed with non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD, and an anxiety disorder. Hope and Gus appeared onstage at the 2024 DNC, where their tearful cheering from the audience went viral. Videos of Gus became popular for representing neurodivergence, in what became called the "Gus Walz effect".

Awards and decorations

Agriculture

In 2017, Walz was one of 33 U.S. senators and representatives to receive the Golden Triangle Award from the National Farmers Union for "demonstrated leadership and support at the federal policymaking level for family farmers, ranchers and their rural communities".

Public service

In 2026, Walz received the Joan and Walter Mondale Award for Public Service at the Humphrey-Mondale Awards.

Military

Walz's military awards and decorations include: