Who is Gwen Walz? What to know about the wife of Harris VP pick Tim Walz

Gwen Walz is getting thrust into the spotlight now that her husband Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has joined Vice President Kamala Harris as her vice presidential running mate.

Being in the public eye won’t be new for Gwen, who has been married to Tim for three decades. Before going into politics, Tim was a teacher, like his wife.

Here are a few things to know about the woman who could become the next second lady of the United States.

Gwen met Tim when they were both teachers in Alliance, Nebraska. Gwen, a Minnesota native, was a high school English teacher and met Walz while he was teaching history at the same school.

Before they met, Gwen grew up with her three sisters in western Minnesota. She attended Gustavus Adolphus College and the University of Minnesota in Mankato.

After dating for a while, the couple got married on June 4, 1994. Two years later, the couple moved to Mankato, where Gwen continued to pursue her career as an educator. Before transitioning into politics, Walz was a geography teacher and the couple started the Educational Travel Adventures program, taking high school students on summer trips to China. 

Gwen worked in the Mankato school district for more than 20 years, and she wasn’t just a teacher for public schools but worked in alternative and migrant schools. She also worked as an administrator and coordinator and focused on eliminating the “achievement gap and strive for more equity and access within education systems,” according to her bio.

As first lady of Minnesota, she has been a proponent of prison reform and implementing more educational programs in the prison systems. Gwen has also supported giving prisoners access to a liberal arts college degree through the Bard Prison Initiative. 

For Gwen and her husband, starting a family was a difficult process, and they ultimately turned to in vitro fertilization, which led to the birth of their daughter Hope in 2001 and their son Gus in 2006. They went through fertility treatment for seven years.

 “It’s not by chance that we named our daughter Hope,” Walz told the Star Tribune.

IVF has been a huge point of contention this election cycle, with many Democrats saying Republican-led states will take away protections for it. However, former President Donald Trump said he would defend IVF, and it was included in the GOP 2024 party platform. 

From prison reform to advocacy work in the LGBT community, Gwen has been active in her role as Minnesota’s first lady, even having an office down the hall from her husband in the state Capitol. She is the only first lady in the state’s history to have an office in Minnesota’s Capitol building.