Gwen Walz, the Coolheaded, Ultracompetent Political Spouse

In 2006, during his first campaign for Congress, Tim Walz was scheduled to speak at a fund-raising dinner in his hometown, Mankato, Minn. At the time, he was a political unknown in a tightly contested race against a six-term incumbent. The dinner was a chance to stump in front of his local district of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and to bolster his campaign coffers.

There was only one problem: Mr. Walz had laryngitis.

As guests loaded up plates with food, they were surprised to see someone else take the stage: Gwen Walz, Mr. Walz’s wife.

She was used to speaking in front of a crowd: Like her husband, Ms. Walz had been a public-school teacher for more than a decade. Those sitting in the audience were impressed by her confidence and clarity.

“There were other candidates who spoke, and she was the most articulate of the bunch,” said John Klaber, a North Mankato resident who was at the fund-raiser almost two decades ago. “We all looked around and said, ‘Why isn’t she running?’”

Most of the American public got its first good look at Gov. Tim Walz last week at a rally in Philadelphia alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, who had that day announced him as her running mate. At the end of his speech, the nation also got its first glimpse of the woman to whom he has been married for 30 years.

As Ms. Walz enters the national stage, critics on the right are already trying to portray her — as they have with her husband — as a left-wing radical who countenanced the civil unrest in her state after the death George Floyd. But at home in Minnesota, where she has spent most of her life, friends and political observers describe her as the coolheaded and ultracompetent counterpart to a man known for an intuitive and charismatic political style.