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      US election 2024: as Kamala Harris consolidates her campaign, abortion likely to be a major focus

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      Kamala Harris has been the presumptive Democratic nominee for US president for less than a fortnight, but some key themes are becoming clear from her campaign. One of those is abortion, about which she has spoken frequently since Joe Biden declared her his preferred successor.

      Just over two years ago, the US Supreme Court overruled the 49-year-old precedent of Roe v Wade and withdrew constitutional protection for the choice to terminate a pregnancy. In the June 2022 majority judgment in the case of Dobbs v Women’s Health Organization – the case that overturned Roe v Wade – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Roe v Wade had been “egregiously wrong from the start”. He concluded that: “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”

      Under the guise of undoing this wrong, the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion law to state jurisdiction. Americans have been watching the consequences unfold ever since, as various states have passed laws restricting or banning women from being able to terminate pregnancies.

      Harris led the Biden administration’s response to this decision, visiting an abortion clinic and speaking out about reproductive freedom. Even before she took on the presidential candidacy, campaign rallies and adverts from the Democratic campaign were focused on the decision restrict women’s reproductive freedom.

      The results of the 2022 midterm elections suggest this could be a useful strategy. The Democrats did significantly better than expected – and abortion was considered a major factor. Certainly successful ballot initiatives in California, Michigan and Ohio (which added constitutional protections) and defeats for abortion restriction measures in Kansas, Kentucky and Montana suggested an increased turnout of Democrat voters.

      This November, a possible 11 states could have abortion-related initiatives on the ballot, including Arizona, a key swing state in this election. In such a tight race, parties are looking for any possible advantage.

      Possibly mindful of this – and of the fact that most Americans continue to support some access to abortion – the Republican party recently softened its official stance, removing language calling for a federal abortion ban which appeared in both 2016 and 2020. Some Republican state legislators have urged caution about strict abortion bans that may alienate potential voters.

      Widespread impact

      Speaking regularly about reproductive rights also helps keep in voters’ minds the widespread consequences of the Dobbs decision on abortion and how it affects pregnant women and medical professionals across much of the country.

      Only half of states protect abortion, at least until the point of foetal viability. These states – particularly those which border two or more states with abortion bans such as Illinois and Ohio – have become centres for those seeking abortion care and who are able to travel.

      Fourteen states have outright bans on abortion access. Some have exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant women, but many do not. Another 11 states have gestational limits that are earlier than the previous 24-week limit. Some are so early that most pregnant women don’t even yet know they are pregnant.

      More than half of states have other restrictions: waiting time requirements, mandated counselling, required ultrasounds, multiple visits to the doctor, spousal or parental consent laws and others.

      The most recent estimates suggest 48% of women now live in states with some form of abortion restrictions. That figure rises to 57% for black women and higher for Native American women. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organisation, estimates that almost one in five pregnant women now have to travel out of state for abortion access.

      Indirect attacks on access

      By speaking out on abortion, the Harris campaign is also seeking to galvanise pro-choice voters by reminding them that the threats come in many forms.

      In June, an attempt to undermine access to the abortion pill, mifepristone, was rejected by the Supreme Court. The case was, in effect, a back door attempt to further restrict abortion access.

      There was a fierce and immediate backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade.
      EPA-EFE/Etienne Laurent

      And, although interstate travel is constitutionally protected in the US, some localities in Texas have been trying to prevent use of their roads by those seeking to leave the state to access abortion care.

      Two University of Texas at Austin professors sought the legal right to academically fail students who take time off for abortion care, while Idaho academics were warned they could no longer advise students about anything relating to abortion.

      And, as the New Republic reported, anti-abortion laws are increasingly being used by domestic abusers to threaten and harass partners.

      Healthcare consequences

      As anti-abortion advocates continue to press for greater restrictions across the US, data from the Guttmacher Institute show that they continue to fail to achieve their aim of reducing abortion rates. In 2023, abortion rates were higher across the country than in previous years.

      But, as many doctors are pointing out, the restrictions are regularly putting the lives of pregnant women at risk. Mimi Zieman, an obstetrician from Georgia wrote: “If I were finishing my training today and choosing somewhere to practice, I would not come to this state or anywhere with these restrictions on practice.”

      Many agree with her. Recent studies suggest as many as 70% of gynaecology students in the US are less likely to consider residency in a state with abortion restrictions.

      This risks leaving pregnant women without both abortion access and good, reliable, accessible reproductive healthcare. In a country that already has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, this suggests further declines.

      Testimony from practitioners overwhelmingly indicates that threats to medical licences and risk of prison terms are deterring doctors from undertaking vital healthcare provision.

      And pregnant women are suffering as a result. Stories now abound of women like Kate Cox, who was forced to travel outside of Texas for an abortion when the state refused to determine that her case was sufficiently life threatening to qualify under their exemption. Or that of Nicole Miller, airlifted to a nearby state because the abortion she required to medically stabilise her was unavailable in her home state of Idaho.

      Harris and the Democrats want voters to remember these stories as they go to the polls in November. And they want voters to remember that it was Trump, and his Supreme Court appointees, who made it possible. More

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      In choosing Tim Walz, Kamala Harris went for policies not electoral votes | John Zogby

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      Vice-President Kamala Harris has selected the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate and this big decision reflects more conventional history than inside-the-DC-beltway convention wisdom. While pundits focused mainly on which possible choice could help her ticket win a battleground state, their focus was on either Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) or Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona (11 electoral votes). In this hotly competitive race, either selection made good sense in the scramble for a majority of the electoral college.But we have to go back to 1960 when the young Massachusetts senator John Kennedy picked the Texas senator and majority leader, Lyndon Johnson, to be his running mate to find the last time selecting a candidate who actually brought a state with him was the dominant concern. Johnson and Kennedy hated each other but the ticket carried Texas, so who cared?Since that time, other factors were in the ascendance. The very conservative governor of California Ronald Reagan opted for the more moderate, establishment, comfortable George HW Bush in 1980. Bush brought credibility and possibly modulation. A decade later, after Reagan and Bush were the two oldest men ever to serve in the White House, 46-year-old Bill Clinton chose 44-year-old Al Gore.Gore brought much-needed Washington experience, even more intellectual heft, and above all the image of youthful vigor to promote the mantra of change. In one of their first public appearances together, Clinton and Gore got off the campaign bus and played catch with a football, a powerful image of a new boomer generation ready to go.In 2000, Governor George W Bush, a successful and moderate Texas governor of Texas, needed an insider with gravitas and knowledge of the workings inside the nation’s capital. Actually, Dick Cheney, who Bush had appointed to conduct a vice-presidential search, chose himself.And eight years later, Senator Barack Obama, barely in the US Senate, was not thinking of Joe Biden’s state of Delaware with only three (comfortably Democratic) electoral voters. Rather, Biden brought decades of legislative and foreign policy experience, the wisdom of age, and hardworking ethnic working-class roots to the table.So, Governor Walz is much more than the man from Minnesota (10 electoral votes). Actually, he was born in rural Nebraska, taught high school and coached football in a small town, has served almost six terms in the House of Representatives and is into his second term as governor. He is wildly popular among his fellow Democratic governors who selected him to be their leader. He has lived and led since 1996 in Mankato, Minnesota, population 45,000. Walz has been on the inside but more significantly he has never left the outside. Walz is seen as an appealing option for independents and moderate Democrats as a working-class politician with a rural background, as well as a favorite among the progressive wing of the Democratic party who were not keen on either Shapiro or Kelly.Before running for office, Walz, a graduate of a state college in Nebraska, served in the army national guard. He worked as a teacher, first on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, then in China and later as a high school teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, south of Minneapolis. As a teacher, he was assigned the duty of supervising the cafeteria during lunch. (I suppose he can do anything!)As governor, he has passed tuition-free meals at participating state universities, enshrined abortion rights into state law, provided protections for gender-affirming healthcare, signed a bill last May expanding voting rights in Minnesota for formerly incarcerated residents, and in 2020, oversaw the state’s response to both the Covid-19 pandemic and police brutality protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police.He offers a combination of a rural/small-town family man, rooted in traditional values, while also pushing through legislative programs that are near-and-dear to the progressive base of the party. While his views on the war in Gaza are not out of step with mainstream congressional Democrats, it is notable that he expressed support for and understanding of the college demonstrators’ empathy for the suffering victims of the Gaza war.By selecting Walz, the vice-president has accomplished a few important things. First, she has chosen someone from and of the midwest and rural America, moving away from the big city/coastal elitism that the party has come to represent. Second, she has declared her independence from the Biden administration’s premise of Israel first and always as Middle Eastern policy. And third, she has chosen someone who is no “hillbilly” with fluid values, but an authentic midwesterner. We now have a possible injection of “prairie progressivism” v “hillbilly/Mar-a-Lago populism”. This will be no small debate.

      John Zogby is senior partner at John Zogby Strategies and author of Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should More

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      US election live updates: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania

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      Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Harris sought to define Walz foremost as a teacher, veteran and football coach.Walz focused on a unifying, future-focused message, and attacked the Trump-Vance ticket with a focus on reproductive rights and other freedoms.Meanwhile Josh Shapiro, who had been a vice-presidential contender, still made his mark.Read the key takeaways here.Here are some images from the Harris/Walz campaign rally in Philadelphia last night.Kamala Harris introduced her running mate Tim Walz as “the kind of vice-president America deserves” at a raucous rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday that showcased Democratic unity and enthusiasm for the party’s presidential ticket ahead of the November election.Casting their campaign as a “fight for the future”, Harris and Walz were repeatedly interrupted by applause and cheering as they addressed thousands of battleground-state voters wearing bracelets that twinkled red, white and blue at Temple University’s Liacouras Center – a crowd Harris’s team said was its largest to date.“Thank you for bringing back the joy,” a beaming Walz told Harris after she debuted the little-known Minnesota governor as a former social studies teacher, high school football coach and a National Guard veteran.“We’ve got 91 days,” he declared. “My God, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”Read the full story here. More

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      ‘Let’s kick ass!’: Hollywood celebrities share their support of Tim Walz

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      Hollywood figures, including Julianne Moore and Rob Reiner, have shared their support for Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz.The 60-year-old Minnesota governor was announced as the running mate of Harris, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, on Tuesday after weeks of speculation.The decision was praised on social media by stars such as Cynthia Nixon, best known for her role in Sex and the City and her unsuccessful campaign to be governor of New York. “I’m Walzing on air,” she wrote while thanking Harris.Film-maker and Democratic fundraiser Rob Reiner, who had called on Joe Biden to step down in early July, reposted a montage of Walz and then later wrote: “Harris/Walz. Let’s kick ass!”Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, also shared his support, writing that he was “so happy” about the decision while sharing his Saturday Night Live dream casting. “If only Chris Farley was still around to play him opposite Maya Rudolph’s Kamala,” he wrote.Acclaimed documentary film-maker Ken Burns, who has previously warned against Donald Trump, reposted a tweet from Walz, adding his support. “You can’t go wrong with a social studies teacher,” he wrote. “Excited to have @Tim_Walz on the ticket. Good to have someone who knows American history.”Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, who thanked the president for his “leadership, grace under pressure, strength and resilience” after he withdrew from the race, shared a picture of Harris and Walz, with the tagline: “LET’S GO AMERICA!” The same image was also shared by fellow Oscar winner Julianne Moore who wrote: “This is such exciting news! I cannot wait to vote for this ticket.”John Cusack, who had called for Biden to step down, expressed confidence over the decision in a post. “It’s no absolute guarantee dems win – but absolutely gives us the best chance,” he wrote.Wonder Woman actor Lynda Carter referred to Walz as “a champion who understands America” while Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph called him “an honest, forthright family man with morals and true values”.In a statement announcing Walz as her choice, Harris wrote: “As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. We are going to build a great partnership.” More

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      From folksy Midwestern teacher to ‘cool dad’ meme machine: who is Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ VP running mate?

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      A former teacher and football coach who a majority of Americans had never heard of before is now running for vice president of the United States alongside Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

      While the two names at the top of the Democratic and Republican tickets – Harris and Donald Trump – will largely define the next three months in the US presidential race, both campaigns will still focus considerable attention on defining Tim Walz, Harris’ largely unknown running mate.

      So, who is Walz? And what will his addition to the Democratic ticket mean for Harris and the Democrats’ chances of winning the election?

      Teaching in rural public schools

      Walz undeniably has strong roots in rural and working-class America, despite being a member of a Democratic Party that has become increasingly urban and highly educated in recent years.

      Born in a small Nebraska town to a school teacher father and a school administrator mother, Walz enrolled in the National Guard at 17. He later graduated from a small public university with a degree in social science education.

      Walz met his wife, Gwen, while teaching in rural Nebraska. She soon persuaded him to move to her home state of Minnesota, where they got jobs teaching at the same school.

      Walz devoted the next decade of his career to the school in Mankato, Minnesota, where he was a social studies teacher, American football coach and faculty adviser for the student gay-straight alliance.

      One particular incident then spurred Walz’s decision to embark on a career in politics. In 2004, he took a group of students to a rally for then-presidential candidate George W. Bush. They were initially denied entry because one of the students had a campaign sticker for Bush’s rival, John Kerry.

      Walz was reportedly irate – and signed up to volunteer for Kerry’s campaign the next day. He then ran for Congress himself in a rural southern Minnesota district bordering Iowa, which he won in 2006.

      As a former command sergeant major, he was the highest-ranking enlisted military member in the history of Congress. And as a representative, he become known as a workhorse, eventually leading the Veterans Affairs Committee.

      After winning six terms in a row in a once reliably Republican district, Walz ran for and won the Minnesota governorship in 2018. He was re-elected in 2022.

      Then-gubernatorial candidate Tim Walz, along with his wife, Gwen (left), celebrates with supporters after winning the Democratic governor’s primary in Minnesota in 2018.
      Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune/AP

      Walz’s political positions

      In his first congressional campaign, Walz presented himself as a moderate Democrat, touting endorsements from the National Rifle Association.

      As a veteran and one of very few Democrats to represent a mostly rural district, Walz bucked the party line on some issues, including opposing a decrease in military spending. A key reason was his concern about China.

      Walz taught English for a year in China and spent his honeymoon there. He and his wife even started a company leading student tours of China.

      Given this history, Walz has a deep familiarity with the country. When he got to Congress, he joined the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a legislative group monitoring human rights and the rule of law in the country. He co-sponsored a number of resolutions condemning China’s human rights abuses and poor environmental standards.

      Walz has also championed democracy activists in Hong Kong and regularly meets with exiled Tibetan leaders, including the Dalai Lama.

      He and his wife were even married on June 4 1994 – the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989 – because, his wife said, he “wanted to have a date he’d always remember”.

      Walz’s time as governor of Minnesota – a state that is more Democratic-leaning than neighbouring Wisconsin or Michigan – has undoubtedly seen him turn more progressive.

      Aided by the fact Democrats hold a small majority in the Minnesota legislature, Walz’s tenure has led to a number of progressive legislative wins, including:

      Governor Tim Walz listens as President Joe Biden speaks in Minnesota in November 2023.
      Andrew Harnik/AP

      Defining Walz

      From teaching on a Native American reservation to a school in China not long after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Walz’s life story has had many diverse turns. So much so, his staffers once called him Forrest Gump, after the Tom Hanks character with a colourful life.

      Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are now angling to define his latest chapter.

      The Harris campaign is hoping Walz’s straight-talking, Midwestern dad persona, combined with his background as a National Guardsman familiar with everything from turkey hunting to repairing pickup trucks, will make him relatable to a wide swathe of voters in middle America. He’s a conventional politician.

      This is particularly important given his running mate, Harris, is anything but “conventional” – if she wins in November, she would be the first woman, first Black woman and first South Asian president in US history. She’s also from California – a state that hasn’t produced a president since Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

      The campaign will also seek to juxtapose Walz’s perceived normalcy against the Trump-Vance ticket, which it is depicting as “weird”.

      Walz first used this word to describe the Republican ticket, and it instantly went viral. He’s since become referred to as a “cool dad” online and has become the source of a stream of memes in recent days.

      For the Trump campaign, they are hoping to define Walz by his more progressive tenure as Minnesota governor, ultimately alienating more moderate voters.

      In the hours after Walz was announced as Harris’ running mate, Republicans began highlighting the unrest in Minnesota that followed the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020 and criticising Walz for being too slow to call in the National Guard to quell the violence.

      While Walz would ultimately call in a sizeable number of National Guardsmen, the Republicans have nonetheless zeroed in on this attack line – even highlighting how Harris sought to raise funds for protesters who had been arrested in Minnesota.

      Crime is a challenging issue for Democrats. When pollsters asked Americans last year which political party does better on crime, Democrats trailed Republicans by ten percentage points.

      Where to from here?

      Ultimately, Harris made clear what she views as Walz’s addition to the Democratic ticket, highlighting his background as a school teacher and National Guardsman. She also told him on Tuesday, “you understand our country”.

      Over the next few months, we’ll see how accurate that statement is – if Walz’s understanding of the country actually helps Harris to win the race in November. More

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      TV tonight: who will win the race for the White House?

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      Trump vs Harris: The Battle for America9pm, Channel 4With less than four months to go until polling day, the US presidential race has suddenly become very interesting indeed. Joe Biden’s withdrawal has seemingly supercharged Democrat hopes of averting the catastrophe of a second Donald Trump term. Kamala Harris presents a very different kind of challenge and suddenly Trump is the candidate looking elderly and vulnerable. Matt Frei presents this documentary exploring the race. What does Harris stand for? Will the Republicans have to completely rethink their campaign, thanks to her arrival? And what on earth was Trump thinking when he chose the abrasive, charmless JD Vance as his running mate? Phil HarrisonIrvine Welsh’s Crime9pm, ITV1After the conclusion of the traumatic Confectioner case, Dougray Scott’s DI Ray Lennox is hoping to put the past behind him. Good luck with that: as this second season of the gripping crime thriller begins, Lennox investigates an attack on a former colleague but soon suspects a high-level cover-up as establishment figures conspire to slam every door. Phil HarrisonCause of Death9pm, Channel 5It is back to the Lancashire coroner’s office for two cases: one, a 75-year-old woman found dead at the bottom of the stairs. In another, a fit and active 83-year-old has collapsed in his bathroom. But is that all there is to it? That’s what Dr Adeley and team must determine. Ellen E JonesMr Bigstuff9pm, Sky MaxDanny Dyer is still getting plenty of mileage out of a patchy script as this slight but amiable comedy reaches its penultimate episode. This week, urgent action is required as Lee (Dyer) discovers that his past has caught up with him. And, as the wedding day approaches, Kirsty has a confession to make. PHView image in fullscreenLove Me9pm, U&WLike a more refined, downbeat Cold Feet, this Australian relationship drama is far from groundbreaking but nicely judged. The season one finale sees our three related protagonists, all grieving the loss of the family matriarch, try to overcome their flaws and find new happiness, with mixed results. Jack SealeAlaska Daily9pm, AlibiAs the backwater newsroom drama approaches the end of its first series, hard-headed hacks Eileen and Roz remain convinced that the wrong suspect is being railroaded in the Gloria Nanmac murder case. Can they zero in on the real killer without getting too distracted by an influx of tempting job offers? Graeme VirtueFilm choiceView image in fullscreenHoney Boy (Alma Har’el, 2019), 2.45am, Channel 4Given the accusations of abuse levelled against him, it never feels right to praise Shia LaBeouf for anything. That said, you would have to be a monster not to be moved by Honey Boy. LaBeouf loosely based his screenplay on his own childhood, and the post-traumatic stress disorder it gave him. Lucas Hedges essentially plays LaBeouf, and LaBeouf plays a version of his father that pulsates with toxic fury. There is no doubting that the film has heart – its sincerity is full-throated – but you can’t help wondering how much of it was made to explain the worst elements of LaBeouf’s personality. Stuart HeritageLive sportOlympics 2024, 8am, BBC One Coverage includes the early rounds of the women’s 100m hurdles, the men’s 5,000m and the men’s high jump. More

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      The Tim Walz cheat sheet: 10 things to know about Harris’s VP pick

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      In Kamala Harris’s “veepstakes” – the search for a running mate to take on Donald Trump and JD Vance – the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, came from relative obscurity to seize the glittering prize. So who is he and what should you know about him?He’s ‘Minnesota nice’According to the Star Tribune, the well-known phrase refers to “Minnesotans’ tendency to be polite and friendly, yet emotionally reserved; our penchant for self-deprecation and unwillingness to draw attention to ourselves; and, most controversially, our maddening habit of substituting passive-aggressiveness for direct confrontation”. Most of that holds true for Walz, 60, who was born in Nebraska but whose cheerful and friendly demeanour has made him popular in office and even seems to make his political attack lines more effective, as when he went after Donald Trump and JD Vance for being “weird”, the gambit that propelled him into the reckoning to be running mate to Harris.He’s not that ‘Minnesota nice’Walz was a high school football coach, a profession known for displaying and encouraging aggression – active rather than passive at that. For more than a decade at Mankato West high school, Walz was defensive coordinator, working out how to best tackle and silence opposing attackers. As he told Pod Save America this year, when he arrived, the school had lost 27 games in a row. “We said, ‘This is nonsense. Let’s turn this thing around.’ Three years later we were state champions, and now they’re a powerhouse.”He was a sergeant in the national guardWalz spent 24 years in the national guard, out of Nebraska, and then Minnesota. As reported by Stars and Stripes, he enlisted as an infantryman at 17, encouraged by his father, a Korean war veteran, then put himself through college on the GI bill. Re-enlisting after 9/11, Walz deployed during natural disasters on US soil and to Italy in support of operations in Afghanistan.In 2005, Walz retired as a command sergeant major in the artillery – and faced criticism for leaving as his battalion prepared to go to Iraq. In comments publicised by the US army as Covid struck, Walz, the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever voted into Congress, said: “In the guard, you put your community first. Everything you do, you do to ensure the health, safety and security of the people who are depending on you. And as governor, those are principles of servant leadership that I rely on every day.”He’s good at winning electionsWalz was a high school social studies teacher – and adviser to LGBTQ+ students – until, in 2006, he beat a Republican incumbent in a rural area to win a seat in Congress. After six terms in the US House, he ran for governor of Minnesota in 2018. He won that race, against the Republican Jeff Johnson, by 11 points. First-term challenges included the response to Covid-19, imposing and maintaining lockdowns and school and business closures, and the fallout from the police murder of George Floyd, an epochal event that made Minneapolis both the focus of worldwide protests for racial justice and the site of serious rioting. Running for re-election in 2022, against Scott Jensen, Walz won comfortably again.He’s popular with progressivesOn defeating Jensen, Walz told Minnesotans they had “made a conscious choice … to reject negative, divisive politics and choose the whole path of each and every one of us to be the best we possibly can”. On Tuesday, campaigners saluting Harris’s choice of running mate emphasised Walz’s progressive achievements. NextGen Pac, a youth-led group, said Walz had passed “significant legislation … that protects our rights, fights for climate justice, and builds a stronger economy for everyday people … enshrining abortion rights, establishing paid sick and family leave, enacting a nation-leading child tax credit, and signing 40 climate initiatives into law”.Walz has also overseen significant gun control reform, a notable achievement from a politician once endorsed by the National Rifle Association who was encouraged by his daughter to come out in favour of an assault weapons ban, after a series of school shootings.He enrages RepublicansThe announcement that Harris had picked Walz was greeted with predictable rightwing attacks. Foreshadowing Vance’s invective in Philadelphia at lunchtime, the Republican National Committee called Walz “a far-left radical … weak on border security” (presumably the southern border, hundreds of miles from Minnesota, rather than its northern one with Canada), and slammed him for supporting universal healthcare, taxation to pay for such measures, and abortion and voting rights. Walz, the RNC said, is also “extremely woke … a climate radical who wants to phase out fossil fuels” and “soft on crime”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Republican National Committee also highlighted a remark in which Walz discussed the Minnesota electoral map in terms familiar both to students of national politics and those engaged by his folksy attacks on Trump and Vance: “You see those maps,” Walz said in Minneapolis in 2017. “Red and blue and there’s all that red across there. And Democrats go into depression over it. It’s mostly rocks and cows that are in that red area.”He’s a family manWalz’s wife, Gwen Walz, is a public school teacher like her husband and also a prominent campaigner for educational reform, in particular a champion of improving education in prisons as a means of reducing reoffending. Gwen Walz is also the mother of two children, Hope, 23, and Gus, 17, born with the help of in vitro fertilisation, or IVF – treatment under threat from Republicans and rightwing Christians seeking further victories after the removal of federal abortion rights. “If you have never personally gone through the hell of infertility, I guarantee you someone you know has,” Walz said in March, during his state of the state address.Walz’s children have appeared with him in public. At the Minnesota state fair last year, he told Hope, a vegetarian, she could have a turkey corn dog. “Turkey is meat,” Hope said.“Not in Minnesota,” her dad said. “Turkey’s special.”He knows a bit about ChinaThanks to a Harvard-run program, Walz taught in China for a year – it happened to be 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square protests and brutal government crackdown – and as a result he speaks some Mandarin. In 1994, he and Gwen spent their honeymoon in China, on a trip they had arranged for a group of students. According to Gwen Walz’s official state biography, the couple continued to arrange such trips through 2003.He doesn’t drinkIn September 1995, when he was 31, Walz was stopped while driving at 96mph in a 55mph zone. Having failed a sobriety test, he pleaded guilty to a charge of reckless driving and paid a $200 fine. Walz has acknowledged the incident and said he no longer drinks. His preferred tipple is Diet Mountain Dew – coincidentally, also favored by Vance, the Republican pick for vice-president.His name is a mystery to someIs it “Waltz”, as in the dance, or “Walls”, as in the things that hold up roofs, or even “Wal-tz” as in Walmart? Turns out it’s “Waalls”, as in “Walls” but with a slightly longer “a”. He says it that way himself. More