Tim Walz convention speech: ‘Coach’ rallies Democrats and leans on personal story

Tim Walz is running for vice-president, but for a while on Wednesday night, it felt like he was campaigning to be the nation’s high school football coach.

Before he spoke, roughly a dozen of the players on the team he helped coach to a Minnesota state championship decades ago ran on stage, some wearing their old high-school jerseys, bouncing to the blasting horns of a marching band.

Once Mr Walz did appear, delegates in the packed arena waved signs that read “Coach Walz” – and the crowd chanted “coach, coach, coach!”

As this was Mr Walz’s first significant opportunity to introduce himself to the nation, his speech was heavy on his personal story – his time as a football coach, of course, but also his upbringing, his enlistment in the Army National Guard, his work as a high-school teacher, and his service as a congressman and governor.

During parts of his speech his daughter Hope, 23, and son Gus, 17, were seen in tears in the front row of the arena. “That’s my dad!” Gus mouthed as the television camera focused on him.

In the folksy style that the Democratic campaign believes connects with moderate voters in the crucial states of the Midwest, he told the crowd that he was “ready to turn the page on these guys”, referring to Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance.

“So say it with me: ‘We are not going back.'”

He followed a diverse range of speakers and entertainers who took to the stage on the third night of the convention in Chicago, with Oprah Winfrey receiving the most raucous response after a surprise appearance in her hometown.

The four-day party extravaganza will culminate on Thursday evening when Vice-President Kamala Harris formally accepts the Democratic nomination, a little over a month after President Joe Biden stepped out of the race.