Walz’s national spotlight elevates his 1995 DUI arrest

Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate is dredging up stories about his drunken driving arrest in Nebraska in the mid-1990s — and conflicting campaign narratives about the episode during his political career.

Court records show a Nebraska state trooper pulled over Mr. Walz in September 1995 after clocking him at 96 mph in a 55-mph zone. He failed field sobriety tests, and a blood test showed a 0.128% alcohol level, or above the legal limit of 0.10%.

Mr. Walz, who was a high school teacher at the time, took a plea deal for a reduced charge of reckless driving.

Critics of the Harris campaign posted his mug shot online, hoping it would go viral as the Democratic ticket tries to seize momentum in the race for the White House. Yet the Harris campaign didn’t see the decades-old charge as a hindrance.

A New York Times report said the campaign was impressed by Mr. Walz’s candor when former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh confronted Mr. Walz about the arrest during the vetting process. The governor said he had no excuse, learned from the situation and no longer drank — frankness that helped him rise on the Harris team’s list of possible picks.

Yet Mr. Walz’s campaigns weren’t always so candid about the arrest.

During his first run for Congress in 2006, his campaign said his arrest stemmed from a miscommunication between the candidate and the officer at the time. They said Mr. Walz wasn’t driving drunk and suffered from hearing loss from his time in a field artillery unit in the National Guard.

There is no evidence of the hearing-loss excuse in court records reviewed by multiple media outlets, and the story changed during Mr. Walz’s run for governor in 2018. This time, he described it as a pivotal moment that opened his eyes, recalling that his wife, Gwen, told him: “You have obligations to people. You can’t make dumb choices.”

Other stories show Mr. Walz reported the DUI to his principal and resigned from his coaching position. He even offered to quit his teaching job, but the principal talked him out of it.

Today, Mr. Walz’s preferred drink of choice is Diet Mountain Dew. Oddly enough, that’s the beverage of choice for Mr. Walz’s GOP rival, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who loves to talk about the soft drink during campaign stops as former President Donald Trump’s running mate.

• This story is based in part on wire service reports.