Kamala Harris has picked Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her vice-presidential nominee, the BBC’s US partner CBS News has confirmed.
Mr Walz, 60, emerged as a late favourite for the role and was not among the early frontrunners who represent hotly contested battleground states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Democrats believe he can appeal to rural and working-class voters in crucial Midwestern US states.
He is expected to appear with Ms Harris later on Tuesday at a campaign event in Philadelphia.
The two will also speak at the Democratic National Convention later this month, from 19 to 22 August in Chicago, when the Harris-Walz ticket will be formally coronated.
Ms Harris was officially selected as the party’s presidential nominee by a virtual roll call vote that ended on Monday.
Her campaign vetted about a dozen potential running mates over the past two weeks before settling on Mr Walz.
An official announcement on the vice-presidential pick is due later on Tuesday.
The Minnesota governor has drawn enthusiastic support from pro-labour groups and his party’s progressive wing.
He has also gathered buzz for his now-viral description of Donald Trump and ‘Make America Great Again’ Republicans as “weird”.
That characterisation has since been adopted by several Democrats, including by Ms Harris herself. Mr Trump recently responded: “They’re the weird ones.”
In a Tuesday statement, the Trump campaign slammed Mr Walz as a “West Coast wannabe” who “has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota” in the image of a left-wing California.
“If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
As the current two-term governor of Minnesota, Mr Walz has overseen one of the most productive legislative periods in state history.
With unified control of the state legislature, Democrats have enshrined abortion rights, strengthened gun laws, created new paid family and sick leave policies, and implemented a series of other progressive wish-list items.
But Mr Walz has been heavily criticised by Republicans in his state, for his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but especially for his slow deployment of the National Guard in response to violent protests that erupted in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Before entering the governor’s office, Mr Walz represented a Republican-leaning district in the US Congress for 12 years.
He won that seat in 2006 – the only Democrat to have won in the mostly rural district over the past three decades.
The son of a public school administrator and a stay-at-home mother, Mr Walz is a native of rural Nebraska.
He grew up farming and hunting before joining the Army National Guard at 17.
He went on to serve in the volunteer force for 24 years.
The young Mr Walz also taught secondary school students – first for one year in China, then back home in Nebraska.
It was his wife, Gwen Whipple, a fellow teacher, who drew him back to her native Minnesota. There, he continued teaching as well as coaching football at a public high school.
He has described his entry into politics as almost accidental. He said he volunteered for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign after being angered by an incident in which two of his students were turned away from a George W Bush campaign event.
Madukwe B. Nwabuisi is an accomplished journalist renown for his fearless reporting style and extensive expertise in the field. He is an investigative journalist, who has established himself as a kamikaze reporter.
