In his bid to win the White House along with Vice President Kamala Harris, it’s likely safe to say that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz doesn’t just have a plan: He probably has a map.
The Democratic leader, selected this week to be Harris’ running mate in the 2024 race, is a devotee of geographic information systems, or GIS.
In other words, Walz likes to pair data with geographical information to describe everything from potential climate change impacts of disturbing peat bogs to how best to dole out tax credits to low-income families.
“You can’t hope we bring equity into how we’re doing power and economic justice and environmental justice. You have to have a plan. The tools for that plan are GIS,” Walz said last month, while giving a keynote address at the software company Esri’s annual conference.
