On the penultimate night of the Democratic National Convention, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took the stage in Chicago and said that, “it's the honor of my life to accept your nomination for vice president of the United States."
Delving into his backstory, Walz talked about growing up in a small Nebraska town, joining the Army National Guard and becoming a high school teacher and football coach.
He said his players and students inspired him to run for Congress in 2006, when he won in a historically red district.
“They saw in me what I had hoped to instill in them: a commitment to the common good, an understanding that we're all in this together and the belief that a single person can make a real difference for their neighbors,” Walz said.
"There I was, a 40-something high school teacher with kids, zero political experience, and no money, running in a deep red district," he continued. "But you know what? Never underestimate a public schoolteacher. Never."
Walz listed his proudest accomplishments from his time as governor, including cutting taxes, passing paid family and medical leave, investing in law enforcement and affordable housing, lowering prescription drug costs, and guaranteeing free school breakfast and lunches for students.
“While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” he said.
He also signed a bill into law protecting abortions and other reproductive health care.
“Because in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make,” Walz said. “And even if we wouldn't make those same choices for ourselves, we've got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz framed his pitch of Democrats’ “freedom agenda” around his struggle with having children with his wife Gwen.
“If you've never experienced the hell that is in fertility, I guarantee you you know somebody who has, and I can remember praying each night for a phone call, the pit in your stomach when the phone had rung, and the absolute agony when we heard the treatments hadn't worked,” Walz said. “It took Gwen and I years, but we had access to fertility treatments, and when our daughter was born, we named her Hope.”
He then turned to his wife, daughter and son Gus and told them “you are my entire world and I love you.”
His children, looking on at their dad giving his speech, were in tears. Hope made a heart sign with her hands, while Gus stood up, sobbing, and shouted, "That's my dad!"
“I'm letting you in on how we started a family, because this is a big part about what this election is about: freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor's office. Corporations, free to pollute your air and water, and banks, free to take advantage of customers,” Walz said. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own health care decisions, and, yeah, your kids freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”
Walz then spoke of his relationship with guns as a veteran and a hunter and how he evolved on the issue of gun control. He boasted of being “a better shot than most Republicans in Congress, and I got the trophies to prove it.”
“That's what this is all about, the responsibility we have to our kids, to each other and to the future that we're building together, in which everyone is free to build the kind of life they want, but not everyone has that same sense of responsibility,” Walz said. “Some folks just don't understand what it takes to be a good neighbor.”
Among those folks, Walz named Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, pinning them to the right-wing presidential transition plan Project 2025 crafted by Trump allies and former administration officials that they’ve attempted to distance themselves from.
“Look, I coached high school football long enough to know and trust me on this. When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they're going to use it,” Walz said. “Here's the thing, it's an agenda nobody asked for. It's an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and the most extreme amongst us. it's an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need.”
“Is it weird? Absolutely, absolutely,” he continued. “But it's also wrong and it's dangerous.”
In his short time on the campaign trail, Walz hasn’t been known for long, drawn out orations – in fact, per C-SPAN, his speech was the shortest in the last 30 years, beating Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Dan Quayle in 1992 and, ironically, Kamala Harris in 2020, who each spoke for 18.5 minutes – which he was happy to admit fairly quickly into his truncated acceptance speech.
"You might not know it, but I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this…but I have given a lot of pep talks, so let me finish with this, team," Walz said, before breaking deep into football metaphors.
"It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal, but we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball; we’re driving down the field, and boy, do we have the right team," Walz said, boasting about his quarterback. "Kamala Harris is tough, Kamala Harris is experienced and Kamala Harris is ready. Our job, for everyone watching, is to get in the trenches, do the blocking and tackling, one inch at a time, one phone call at a time, one door knock at a time."
In other words, he said, this campaign won’t be won by long-bomb Hail Mary passes to a streaking receiver over the outstretched hands of a pack of defenders — it’ll be won in a scrap, bulldozing forward, just the way Walz (who, as he noted, ran a big lineman- and linebacker-heavy 4-4 defense as a high school football coach) likes it.
"We got 76 days. That’s nothing. There’ll be time to sleep when we're dead. We’re going to leave it on the field," he said, building toward a raspy-voiced football coach’s crescendo. "That’s how we’ll keep moving forward, that’s how we’ll turn the page on Donald Trump, that’s how we’ll build a country where workers come first, health care and housing are human rights and the government stays the hell out of your bedroom…that’s how we’re going to fight.
"And as the next President of the United States always says, when we fight, we win!" Walz said, as Neil Young’s anthem "Rockin’ in the Free World" began to blare.