The authentic American working-class demeanor of Kamala Harris’s new running mate, Tim Walz, appears to be more than just an act.
Financial disclosures show that Tim Walz has virtually no assets to his name. No stocks, bonds, or even real estate to call his own. Together with his wife, Gwen, his net worth is $330,000, according to a report equal The Wall Street Journal citing financial disclosures from 2019, a year after he became governor of Minnesota.
With that little savings, he would be more or less on par with average number for Americans his age (he’s 60), and even poorer than average. One in fifteen Americans is a millionaire, a recent UBS report on wealth found. discovered.
Meanwhile, Walz and his wife Gwen’s combined annual income came to $166,719 before taxes in 2022, according to their joint return filed that same year. Walz was entitled to earn even more, $127,629. wage He received the money as governor of the state, but he chose not to take the difference of about $22,000.
“Walz represents the stable middle class,” tax attorney Megan Gorman, author of a book on the personal finances of US presidents, told the newspaper.
The governor’s office could not be immediately reached. Luck for more comments.
Walz’s personal net worth is far from the estimated $8 million. Net assets owned by Kamala Harris. Much of it is thanks to her husband, a successful entertainment attorney from California before they moved to Washington DC in 2021.
The contrast is even more stark with their rivals. Donald Trump’s net worth is estimated to be $4.8 billionbased on Forbes Magazine. Trump has fought hard not to release any tax refund.
Walz’s direct rival, former venture capitalist JD Vance, is also wealthy. He and his wife have a combined net worth of $10.4 million, plus real estate, the WSJ found. Vance’s campaign would not confirm that figure. Some of that wealth comes from his ownership stakes in dozens of companies through his firm, Narya Capital Management.
Politicians’ wealth has become a hot topic, especially as high-ranking officials like Nancy Pelosi have become known for her uncanny talent when it comes to wealth. stock pick like her political views.
Walz’s Salt of the Earth Foundation
A little-known candidate just weeks ago, the affable Walz emerged as a last-minute winner of Veepstakes on Tuesday, defeating the popular governor of the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro.
One major reason Harris chose him, aside from the rumored relationship, was his humble upbringing in the country’s heartland.
Sign up Army National Guard in 1981 and retired as a sergeant, he became a high school teacher and football coach in Mankato, Minnesota, before entering public service as a member of Congress in 2006. Later, as governor of the state, he pushed policies popular with the party’s base, including universal school lunches and the legalization of marijuana use.
As Harris pursued a career as a prosecutor in the tech city of San Francisco, Walz’s job was to bring balance to the ballot by portraying small-town America as convincingly as possible.
The Harris-Walz ticket will need it because the past two presidential elections have been decided by purple battleground states around the industrial Midwest and the Great Lakes. There, in the Rust Belt, practical, livelihood-enhancing policies tend to matter more than the identity politics and culture wars over which the two parties frequently bicker.
Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 precisely because his promise to restore manufacturing jobs through punitive import tariffs flipped Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania from blue to red. Four years later, however, he lost all three states to Biden after failing to protect communities like Youngstown, Ohio, from factory closure.
Walz’s modest finances may appeal to low-income voters in white working-class towns, but he will have to compete for their votes with J.D. Vance. The senator is from Ohio and captured the sense of desperation many feel there in his best-selling book, The Elegy of the Mountain People.
