American voters have a candidate they can trust and relate to in Walz

For the first time in decades, the American people have the choice to vote for a candidate on a major-party presidential ticket who understands the realities of middle-class life in America.

America, meet Tim Walz: the man who wants to help lead this nation. He’s a modest, good guy who could have stepped off the screen from a Frank Capra movie.

Nope he’s not JD Vance, who, despite his Appalachian claims, became a millionaire venture capitalist and built a close relationship with hyperconservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel — who has funded much of Vance’s rise to political power. His wife is a wealthy attorney at a top law firm and, in every way, Vance is a fancy pants serving boy for those with money and power.

Nope, he’s not Donald Trump, whose silver spoon upbringing and predatory business practices — which include multiple documented instances of cheating thousands of dollars from contractors, especially the small family businesses that couldn’t afford to sue him— undermine his claims of supporting working-class Americans. Trump only thinks of working-class Americans when he wants them to vote for him, donate to him or join the mob to intimidate his political enemies. A man of the people he isn’t.

In nearly every way that matters Walz, like Vice President Kamala Harris, is unlike any major-party candidate we have seen since fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey was named Lyndon Johnson’s running mate in 1964.

In financial disclosures filed with the state of Minnesota, Walz revealed that he does not own any individual stocks. Nor does he own or operate any private business ventures. And with the sale of his home five years ago, he has joined the more than a third of Americans who don’t own a home or any other form of real estate.

In total, Walz and his wife had a combined income of $166,000 in 2022, approximately two-thirds of which came from Walz’s annual salary as governor of Minnesota. The rest came from his wife’s salary as a teacher at Augsburg University.

Their modest finances — an estimated total net worth of $330,000 — are similar to many high school teachers — the profession Walz proudly pursued for almost 20 years before being elected to the House of Representatives in 2006. But compared with his peers in Congress, Walz is just an everyday guy.

Walz has pursued a normal and honorable American life: serving his community as a parent, a soldier, a policymaker and advocate for the working class. This simple lifestyle also explains much about his accomplishments as governor and the agenda he and Harris hope to implement from the White House.

As governor, Walz championed what he described as a “care economy” that prioritized the concerns of everyday Americans — especially families with children.

With the support of a Democrat-controlled legislature, he created a fully refundable child tax credit equal to $1,750 per child, expanded tax credits for K-12 education expenses and child care expenses, and cut taxes for Social Security recipients. He also approved free breakfasts and lunches for all students regardless of income and championed a college financial aid program that covers the tuition and fees for full-time students attending an in-state public school if they come from a household earning less than $80,000 a year.

As a former union member, Walz joined a United Auto Workers picket line last year and championed guaranteed paid family and medical leave for workers, outlawed noncompete agreements that keep wages artificially low, and banned medical providers from withholding necessary care due to medical debt. These priorities align remarkably well with his presidential running mate, Harris, who in June, unveiled a proposal to keep medical debt from negatively impacting American’s credit scores.

But perhaps most impressively, Walz has taken all of these actions to support middle-class families while eagerly helping to build businesses in Minnesota.

As an example, he supported iron mining and steel production in the “Iron Range” region of Northern Minnesota. Simultaneously, he was cautious of projects that pose more serious and significant risk to critical and irreplicable habitat such as a proposed copper mine near Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, which is critical to both life in Minnesota and its tourism business.

“What we have appreciated about Gov. Walz is he is very pragmatic,” Julie Lucas, executive director of MiningMinnesota, a trade organization for some of the largest mining projects in the state, told Politico.

Moreover, many of the tax benefits and programs championed by Walz were paid for by raising taxes on multinational corporations that benefit from access to consumers and families in Minnesota. It’s a surprisingly commonsense approach that asks businesses that want to operate within the state to be good neighbors and partners that invest back into the communities they are profiting from, creating a win-win scenario for businesses and families alike. 

Walz doesn’t just claim to be a champion for middle-class workers and families. He is a working-class American himself. He understands the challenges and constraints of raising a family on a tight budget, has felt the financial stress of inflation, winced at mortgage interest rates, budgeted carefully to plan for future necessities and luxuries alike, and worried about putting children through college.

As a popular teacher, he had a close-up daily view of the struggles of young people as well as their families. And he helped them all as best he could. As a military man, he knew the emotional strains families feel during deployments. He doesn’t have to pretend to be us because he is us.

Nothing scares those in the corridors of GOP power more than the simple strength and honesty of Americans who care for their neighbors, who don’t hate others, who want to make the world a little better for everyone and have the backbone to see it through. That’s Tim Walz. When Republicans attack him, what they’re really doing is attacking us.

His “folksy” “dad-like” persona is not an act. It’s who he is — a regular guy who wants little more than to be a good father, a good husband and good American.