After what must have been one of the shortest running-mate vetting processes in U.S. history, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz would join her on the Democratic ticket.

The announcement came just 16 days after Harris took the party reins from President Joe Biden, after the latter chose to step aside from electoral consideration in favor of his vice president.

“When I called (Walz) this morning to ask him to join our campaign, I shared my deep level of respect for him and the work we’ve done together. We’re going to unify this country and we’re going to win. Let’s go get this done,” Harris said via social media.

“He really does shine a light on a better future that we can build together,” Harris said at an evening rally in Philadelphia. “Tim Walz will be ready on day one.”

Walz said that it’s the “honor of a lifetime” to join the campaign.

“I’m all in. Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school. So, let’s get this done, folks,” he wrote.

“I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket,” he said later in Philadelphia.

Walz, 60, joined the U.S. Army National Guard at 17 years old and retired after serving 24 years as an artillery officer and rising to the rank of Command Sergeant Major. He’s a former high school social studies teacher and football coach who took his team to their first state championship.

Raised in Nebraska by a military family, Walz entered politics after moving to his wife Gwen’s native Minnesota in the 90s. He used his folksy charm and natural ability to connect with regular people to run for and win the North Star State’s conservative-leaning First Congressional District in 2006, and went on to win reelection five times. He won the governor’s office in 2018 and was reelected to that position in 2022.

The governor, a father of two, has never lost an election. Walz is also seen as the first to come up with an insult capable of sticking to the famously Teflon-coated Donald Trump, labeling the 45th President and his running mate “weird.”

During his time in office, according to the Harris-Walz campaign, Walz “lowered the cost of insulin to $35 per month for many Minnesotans. He eliminated junk fees. And, he signed paid leave into law so that parents can take care of sick family without losing their job.”

“Governor Walz stood up for fundamental freedoms and made Minnesota the first state to pass a law codifying abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. He funded Minnesota police departments, putting more cops on the street and investing in body cameras, and established universal background checks for gun purchases. And, he worked across the aisle to pass a bipartisan infrastructure package,” the campaign wrote.

Walz is also a gun owner and “avid pheasant hunter” that’s pro-Second Amendment but in favor of legislation to tackle gun violence.

According to Bay State Gov. Maura Healey, Harris has made a fantastic choice in Walz, and the pair make the “ideal team to defeat Donald Trump and JD Vance and move this country forward.”

“I’m a proud colleague of Governor Walz,” she said, noting his military and teaching service. “He is a person of deep integrity and empathy.”

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark said Walz “is a joyful, battle-tested public servant who has made it his life’s work to help others — from the National Guard to the classroom to the governor’s mansion.”

“While Donald Trump and JD Vance work to rig our economy for the rich and tear away women’s rights, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have a vision for our country that includes everyone. They will lead with compassion, safeguard our freedom, and ensure working families can get ahead,” she said in a statement.

UMass Lowell Professor John Cluverius, an expert in presidential politics, said that Walz is just bland enough to be a good choice for Harris.

“In a vice president, you want to pick someone as unifying and boring as possible. It’s smart for Harris to pick someone who isn’t going to offend and Walz is brilliantly dull,” he said.

Trump responded to Harris’ announcement that Walz would join her campaign by seemingly inventing a movement to reestablish Biden’s candidacy, despite the fact that Harris officially clinched the party nomination Monday night.

“This is the most Radical Left duo in American history. There has never been anything like it, and there never will be again. Crazy Kamabla is, indeed, CRAZY. I HEAR THERE IS A BIG MOVEMENT TO ‘BRING BACK CROOKED JOE,’” he wrote, capitalization and misspelling his.

Walz has received criticism from some Republicans over his leadership during protests and riots that occurred in his state in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and for his use of executive power during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Walz was arrested in 1995 and accused of driving under the influence. He later pled guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving.

A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee said the Command Sgt. Maj. is “weak, failed, and dangerously liberal” and that he “transformed Minnesota into a third-world refuge for the Radical Left’s most deranged lunacy — and now he’s joining forces with Kamala to do it to the rest of the country.”

Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally with Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris last night in Philadelphia. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)