Tim Walz vows to safeguard Americans’ freedoms as he accepts Democrats’ nomination for vice-president

Tim Walz declares he and Kamala Harris will safeguard the freedoms of ordinary Americans, as he says it’s the ‘honour’ of his life to accept the Democrats’ nomination for vice-president.

Tim and Gwen Walz with their children, Hope and Gus at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday (AEST). Picture: AFP

Tim Walz has formally accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for vice-president, launching himself onto the national political stage and declaring that he and Kamala Harris will safeguard the freedoms and life choices of ordinary Americans.

The previously little-known Governor of Minnesota gave the most important speech of his career to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago two weeks after Ms Harris tapped the former football coach, national guardsman and veteran Democratic to be her running mate.

“It’s the honour of my life to accept your nomination for vice-president of the United States,” he said in what was a fiery speech replete with biting criticisms of Donald Trump and JD Vance, befitting a man who is becoming one of the Democrats’ most effective political attack dogs.

“Thank you for bringing the joy to this fight,” he said of Ms Harris, repeating a theme that’s becoming for the Harris campaign what ‘hope’ was for Barack Obama’s in 2008.

“We’re not going back,” the crowd chanted in what’s become another key slogan of the Democrat campaign.

Mr Walz said Ms Harris was “tough, experienced and ready”, in a speech that was shorter than expected.

“Our job is to get in the trenches and do the blocking and tackling,” he added, one of many sporting analogies made in the speech, harking back to his time as a coach.

He spoke of the difficulty he and his wife Gwen experienced in having children and pledged that he and Ms Harris would protect reproductive freedom and fertility treatments from Republicans who wanted to ban them.

Portraying himself as an everyday American who had worked hard from modest beginnings, he spoke of how he won his first political battle by winning a Republican-dominated district in Minnesota, adding “never underestimate a public school teacher”.

Mr Walz, 60, spoke of his life in America’s midwest, from his childhood on a small farm in Nebraska through to his job as a geography teacher and a football coach through to his rise to become Governor of Minnesota, elected for a second term in 2022.

Walz's wife Gwen and their children Gus and Hope. Picture: AFP

Introduced by his wife, Mr Walz strode onto the stage to the tune of John Mellencamp’s Small Town as his son Gus stood and cried with pride at his father’s achievements. Moments earlier, the school football team Mr Walz coached, now adults, walked onto the stage.

He used the prime-time speech to attack Mr Trump, accusing his Republican rival of pursuing an agenda that only benefited “the richest and most extreme among us”.

He said Mr Trump and Senator Vance were not only “weird”, but also “dangerous” because they would cut health insurance, social security and Medicare, and would ban abortion across the nation.

Republicans, reportedly thrilled that Ms Harris picked Mr Walz over the more centrist and better known governor Josh Shapiro of the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, have aggressively attacked Mr Walz, seeking to cast him as a far-left policy radical and liar who let Minneapolis burn and descend into lawlessness during the riots of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.

Walz gestures as he concludes his remarks. Picture: AFP

They allege Mr Walz has a history of “stolen valour”: exaggerating his final rank during his 24 years in the national guard, and deserting his colleagues ahead of a deployment to Iraq because he wanted to run for congress, allegations which Mr Walz denies.

Early polling has given Mr Walz the edge over his Republican opposite number, Senator Vance from Ohio, whom Mr Walz repeatedly mocked throughout his speech, even though both men remain relatively little known outside their states.

“I had 24 kids in my high school class and none of them went to Yale,” he said at one point, seeking to cast Senator Vance’s educational background as alien to ordinary people.

Voters viewed Mr Walz more favourably than they viewed Senator Vance, according to a poll published on Wednesday by the Associated Press and NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research, although a greater share, 37 per cent, said they didn’t know enough about Mr Walz compared with 28 per cent for Senator Vance.

Earlier former president Bill Clinton walked onto the stage amid cheers and said: “In 2024, we have a clear choice: ‘We The People’ versus ‘Me, Myself, and I’”, the latter phrase referring to Mr Trump, whom Mr Clinton accused of “dividing, blaming and belittling other people”.

“He creates chaos and then sort of curates it, as if it were precious art,” said Mr Clinton, whose voice sounded soft and feeble with age.

In a long and meandering speech, he joked that he turned 78 two days ago, but was “still younger” than Mr Trump, who is also 78, reflecting Democrat efforts to cast Mr Trump as too old to run for president.

The Democrat elder statesman, who served two terms until 2001, dubbed Ms Harris the future “president of joy”, and “the only candidate in this race with the vision, the experience, the temperament, the will, and, yes – the sheer joy – to do that on good and bad days. To be our voice.”

He heaped praise on President Joe Biden for “voluntarily giving up political power”, comparing him to George Washington, who made a similar decision centuries earlier.

Former house Speaker and party elder Nancy Pelosi, who has reportedly fallen out with Mr Biden over her role in engineering his replacement at the top of the ticket with Ms Harris, declared Mr Biden’s presidency “one of the most successful presidencies of modern times”.

Ms Pelosi, 84, praised Mr Walz, whom she worked with in the House of Representatives where Mr Walz served as congressman for 12 years representing a district that had typically been held by Republicans, describing him as a unifier who served with distinction on the veterans affairs committee.

Legendary singer songwriter Stevie Wonder performed his 1972 classic Higher Ground after vaguely endorsing Ms Harris by urging the crowd to choose “joy over anger and kindness over recrimination”.

“This is the moment to remember when you tell your children where you were and what you did, we stand between history’s pain and tomorrow’s promises,” he said.

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey added further star power to the night, making a surprise appearance at the convention, urging the crowd to “stand up to life’s bullies” a reference to Mr Trump, whom she didn’t name explicitly.

“We’re so fired up we can’t wait to leave here and do something,” she declared.

“Common sense tells us that Tim Walz and Kamala are the ones who can give us decency and respect,” she said.

Other Democrat heavyweights appearing at the convention on day three included House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries, former presidential aspirant Cory Booker, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Mr Buttigieg attacked Senator Vance for his comments suggesting Americans without children had less of an interest in the country’s future.

Mr Trump was campaigning with Senator Vance in Asheboro, North Carolina, appearing behind bulletproof glass in the wake of his brush with death in Pennsylvania last month at the hands of a would-be assassin.