Good morning. It’s hard to have a relaxing weekend when a decision that has to come at some point hasn’t yet come.
Likely today, Gov. Tim Walz will get a call inviting him to the Democratic presidential ticket or telling him he didn’t get picked. Walz catapulted to the top tier of choices for Kamala Harris, the current vice president who will lead the party’s ticket in November. Harris deliberated over the pick yesterday in Washington, where Walz and other contenders reportedly sat for final interviews. The selection will appear with Harris for the first time Tuesday in Philadelphia. Will the person on stage be Walz, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker or Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly?
Walz scrapped some other campaign-related travel on short notice. He had been scheduled to kick off some canvasses and other Democratic events in New Hampshire on Sunday. But that got shelved, presumably because the Harris campaign was trying to have its vice presidential contenders lie low as the announcement of who will join the ticket nears.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in our MPR News Walz archive, including many stories I wrote about him before he became governor and the bumpy ride since. One that sticks out in my mind is when Walz was working to leave Washington for St. Paul. Here is the top of that 2018 piece : “Democratic Rep. Tim Walz went to Washington in 2007 in a freshman class that also featured Minnesota's Michele Bachmann and Keith Ellison. Walz lacked the trailblazing status of DFLer Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, or the cable TV pull that quickly made Bachmann a provocative star on the right and future presidential candidate. That was just fine with Walz. He still remembers a freshman orientation where the paths for prominence in Congress were laid out: be an attention-grabbing partisan or a subject-matter expert out to make deals. ‘I heard someone tell me very early on that the national media is for your ego, and the local media is for your constituents,’ Walz said.” The national media glow, perhaps even glower, only ramps up from here.
The virtual presidential nominating rollcall for Democrats closes today, but party officials have already announced that Kamala Harris has enough delegate votes. But Clay Masters reports the support isn't unanimous. He listened in on a teleconference involving the "uncommitted" delegates to the Democratic National Convention, spanning from New Jersey to Hawaii. Minnesota has 11 uncommitted delegates who represent primary voters who cast protest votes over the Biden-Harris administration’s stance on the war in Gaza. They announced their intention to cast their ballots for civilians killed by Israeli attacks. Their votes will be recorded as “present” because that’s the only option besides Harris on the delegate ballot. The delegates say they want a meeting with Harris during the Chicago convention.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, elected as an independent but often in league with Democrats, was in Minnesota over the weekend. He had nice things to say about Walz during an interview with our All Things Considered host Tom Crann. But Sanders’ main mission was to campaign for U.S. Rep. Illhan Omar ahead of the Aug. 13 primary against fellow Democrat Don Samuels. Clay Masters has this dispatch and will have another story on the Omar-Samuels rematch later this week, so watch for that.
Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the 2nd Congressional District race in Minnesota, which is likely to be the most competitive U.S. House contest in the state. Trump endorsed Joe Teirab in a social media post . Teirab is on track to win the Aug. 13 Republican primary because his main competition, fellow attorney Tayler Rahm, left the race to work for Trump’s Minnesota campaign. His name will still appear on the ballot. Of the Trump nod, Teirab said he was “humbled” and honored to have the endorsement and proclaimed “our economy was strong, our streets were safe and our nation’s enemies feared us” when Trump was in office.
Police in Rochester are investigating graffiti containing racial slurs at the home of a Minnesota state lawmaker. Rep. Kim Hicks, a DFLer, said she believes she was the subject of the racist vandalism because she lives in a mixed-race household. Hicks is white and her husband is Black. There are six children in the home. “There is no way to spin this that it wasn’t a racial hate crime against a biracial family who happened to have an elected official as a mother.” Hicks said. Want to learn more about candidates before the primaries? Check out MPR News’ Voter Guides for the primary elections. Our Anika Besst says candidates submitted their answers to three questions through a survey created in partnership with Populist , a nonpartisan voter information source. This survey captures why candidates are running, their background and their priorities for their time in office. These guides are freely available through MPR News’ website and through Populist, where you can build an address-specific ballot. The guides get local, including city council races, county commissioners and more! They can be found in the Election 2024: Voter Guides.
Finally, it's already been a strange campaign with talk of cats, coconuts and soda preferences. Enter the bear talk! I'll just leave this link here about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. discussing his disposal of a dead bear cub in Central Park. | 
