Tim Walz
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Timothy James Walz ( ; born April 6, 1964) is an American politician, former educator, and Army National Guard veteran serving since 2019 as the 41st governor of Minnesota. Previously, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019, representing Minnesota's 1st congressional district, and was the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Walz was born in West Point, Nebraska. After high school, he joined the Army National Guard and worked in a factory. He later graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska and then moved to Minnesota in 1996. Before running for Congress, he was a high school social studies teacher and football coach. He was first elected to the House in 2006, defeating six-term Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht. Walz was re-elected to the House five times and was the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee from 2017 to 2019. Walz was elected governor of Minnesota in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. During his first term, he presided over the state response to protests and riots related to the murder of George Floyd, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. During his second term, he pushed for and signed a wide range of progressive legislation during the two-year period Democrats held a governing trifecta, including voting rights restoration for felons, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, establishing Minnesota as a trans refuge, legalization of cannabis, tax modifications, free school meals, universal gun background checks, codifying abortion rights, and free college tuition for low-income families. On August 6, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate in the 2024 election. Their ticket was defeated by Republican nominees Donald Trump and JD Vance. Walz initially sought a third term as governor in 2026, but withdrew his candidacy after investigations revealed extensive fraud in state-funded social services, raising criticism over failures in administrative oversight and scrutiny from the incumbent Trump administration.