Harris Taps Tim Walz for VP, Doubling Down on Gun Control

With each tickets now formally set for the Presidential election this November, gun voters may have a stark alternative.

On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris (D.) named Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D.) as her operating mate to tackle former President Donald Trump (R.) and Ohio Senator JD Vance (R.) within the 2024 election. Walz, a former Congressman turned Governor, has a virtually equivalent gun platform to 1 the Harris marketing campaign has lately pivoted to.

“I’m proud to announce that I’ve requested Tim Walz to be my operating mate,” she introduced in a social media submit. “As a governor, a coach, a instructor, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working households like his. It’s nice to have him on the group.”

Walz accepted the nomination in a submit of his personal.

“It’s the honor of a lifetime to hitch Kamala Harris on this marketing campaign,” he wrote. “I’m all in.”

The collection of Walz doubles down on Harris’s progressive coverage background, together with on gun points. Regardless of having slim Democratic majorities within the state, Walz has been profitable in signing progressive priorities into legislation, together with common free college lunches, paid household go away, leisure marijuana legalization, and offering driver’s licenses to unlawful immigrants. He additionally reversed course on the problem of gun rights throughout his time within the Governor’s mansion by going from an NRA “A” ranking to signing a collection of recent gun restrictions.

Whereas a member of Congress between 2006 and 2018, Walz actively opposed new gun-control legal guidelines. He typically touted his background as a veteran, hunter, and gun proprietor to attraction to gun-rights voters and was endorsed by the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation as lately as 2016. Nevertheless, after deciding to run for Governor and within the aftermath of the Parkland taking pictures in 2018, Walz started to vary his tune. He endorsed an “assault weapon” ban for the primary time that 12 months. He additionally highlighted his break with the NRA by touting his first “F” grade from the group and claiming he donated the group’s previous contributions to charity, in line with the Minnesota Star Tribune.

“The world’s modified,” Walz advised the paper. “I’ve modified.”

Since being elected, he has continued to push for an assault weapon ban with out success. Nevertheless, he has signed a number of different gun-control measures into legislation. Most notably, Walz enacted common background checks and a so-called purple flag legislation simply final 12 months. These three insurance policies are on the core of Harris’s messaging on weapons since her marketing campaign lately walked again her makes an attempt to push for a compulsory buyback of AR-15s and comparable firearms.

The NRA blasted Harris’s collection of Walz and his shift in favor of gun restrictions.

“Tim Walz is a political chameleon – altering his positions to additional his personal private agenda,” Randy Kozuch, government director of the group’s Institute for Legislative Motion, stated in a press release. “In Congress, Walz presupposed to be a pal of gun homeowners to obtain their help in his rural Minnesota district. As soon as he had his eyes set on different workplaces, he offered out law-abiding Minnesotans and promoted a radical gun management agenda that emboldened criminals and left on a regular basis residents defenseless. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can’t be trusted to defend freedom and our Constitutional rights.”

Gun-control teams, in the meantime, celebrated the choose and instantly endorsed Walz shortly after he was introduced.

“We’re excited to endorse Tim Walz for Vice President,” the group Everytown for Gun Security posted on Twiter. “He has a confirmed document of placing our security first and dealing for a future free from gun violence.”

“Tim Walz is a gun security champion who can bridge the divide, and he’s been a daring chief as Governor when he made the brave and principled determination to present again the NRA’s contributions after the taking pictures in Parkland,” David Hogg, Co-Founding father of March For Our Lives Motion Fund, stated in a press release. “We’re past excited to get to work to assist put the Harris-Walz ticket within the White Home.”

The newly minted Harris-Walz ticket will stand in heavy distinction to the gun coverage on supply from the Trump-Vance ticket. Trump has been endorsed by the NRA for the third time and has already spoken to the group’s members twice on the marketing campaign path this 12 months. Vance has additionally been endorsed by the gun-rights group, and his restricted legislative document on weapons is additional to the precise than Trump’s.

On the similar time, the Republican ticket has so far sought to downplay the salience of gun coverage. The occasion stripped its platform of all gun coverage guarantees, and Trump selected to not point out weapons in any respect throughout his record-long closing remarks on the RNC. Trump has additionally repeatedly publicly complained throughout marketing campaign occasions and interviews that “gun homeowners don’t vote.”

The Trump Marketing campaign responded to Walz’s nomination by attacking the Minnesota Governor as a California liberal.

“It’s no shock that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris desires West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship attempting to reshape Minnesota within the picture of the Golden State,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump Marketing campaign Press Secretary, stated in a press release. “If Walz gained’t inform voters the reality, we are going to: identical to Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is each American’s nightmare.”

Nevertheless, the Trump Marketing campaign didn’t point out gun coverage in its assaults on Walz.