From the raucous, jam-packed floor of the Democratic National Convention, Greg Hansen flashed back 19 years to a Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party dinner where he and his dad happened to sit down next to "two very cool teachers from Mankato."

Tim and Gwen Walz turned out to be lively seatmates, as the Minneapolis Local 292 father and son discussed on the way home.

"I remember saying, 'That guy really had a lot of good ideas about how we could take [GOP incumbent] Gil Gutknecht out of Congress," Hansen recalled. "And I'll be damned if a year later he didn't do it."

In the present, Hansen watched in awe as his longtime friend accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for vice president of the United States.

"The guy we saw on stage that night, the guy the world saw, that's the Tim Walz that those of us in Minnesota have known forever," said Hansen, an electrician at the Minnesota Star Tribune. "He's a regular working-class guy who loves Springsteen, never misses the state fair and likes to hunt pheasant. He's one of us."

Fellow IBEW members say Walz's Midwestern values, modesty and generous spirit never waver no matter which hat he's wearing — social studies teacher, football coach, union member, family man, congressman and now Minnesota's popular governor.

"He's been a brother to us for many years," said Andy Snope, Local 292 legislative and political director. "Even in as high an office as vice president, we know that he'll still have our backs."

He and others said Walz exudes warmth toward the IBEW, whether he's speaking at union halls, hosting members on Capitol lobby days, or dropping by picnics and parties, sometimes with Gwen and their children.

A past member of the American Federation of Teachers, Walz has joined workers on picket lines and earned a near-perfect score from the AFL-CIO as a congressman.

As governor since 2019, he has signed historic pro-worker bills, including a job-creating $2.6 billion infrastructure package, the largest in state history. Other new laws raised the minimum wage, require paid sick days and family leave, bar anti-union captive audience meetings, improve worker safety, bolster apprenticeships, and expand the scope of prevailing wage and project labor agreements.

"Everything that we've tried to do or wanted to accomplish in the building trades, he's had an open ear for us," St. Paul Local 110 President Logan Beere said. "Some states have governors who are actively trying to tear down unions. We have a governor who puts our issues on the front burner."

Beere first saw Walz speak at a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party caucus in 2018. (The DFL is Minnesota's Democratic Party.) "He came in, and he just started rolling. It was like 'Whoa! Who is this?'" Beere said. "He's an intense, passionate speaker, and he was talking about middle-class issues in a passionate way. Hearing and seeing that was so inspiring."

Simply put, IBEW members say, Walz is authentic.

"Tim and Gwen and their family are concerned about the same things we are," Hansen said. "They just put one kid through college, and they're about to send another. They sit around the table and have budget conversations. When they moved into the governor's mansion, they sold their home in Mankato to save money."

Walz's U.S. House win in 2006 shook up a deep-red district that had elected only one other Democrat in more than a century. Rochester Local 343 was the first union to endorse him.

"He came and spoke at an informational meeting for our electricians who were building the Mankato Energy Center," said John Swanson, the local's political coordinator. "There was an instant connection, just the way he spoke to us. It was clear he understood us in a way few politicians do."

As DFL officers in their congressional districts, both Swanson and Hansen served as delegates to the Democratic convention in August. They were a magnet for reporters and anyone else curious about a man most Americans had never heard of a few weeks earlier.

"They were excited to hear our stories," Swanson said. "The day of his acceptance speech, there was so much electricity in the air and we were surrounded by media. It was an unbelievable experience."

Only three weeks earlier, speculation about Vice President Kamala Harris' choice of running mate was rampant. Despite a deep bench of governors, lawmakers and Cabinet secretaries, Hansen had a good feeling.

"Everyone had a reason why a candidate checked this box or that box, and I'm at, 'If I were a betting man, my money would be on Walz,'" he said. "First he was on a list of 12 and then a list of six and then it was three, and we're all looking at each other going 'This is really going to freaking happen!'"

Since then, Walz has been filling arenas with cheering fans and charming voters at diners and ball games.

"As people continue to get to know him, especially working-class folk like us, they're really going to like him," Hansen said. "He's a guy who speaks our language, who's happiest wearing a camouflage hat, a T-shirt and pair of jeans. Who can't relate to that?"

By the time Californians elected Kamala Harris as attorney general in 2010, the subprime mortgage crisis had hit their state harder than any other, with 2.2 million homeowners underwater.

Union families had no more protection than their neighbors against the Wall Street bankers whose greed collapsed the housing market. Rejecting a $2 billion settlement, Harris battled the predatory lenders until they coughed up 10 times as much in reparations.

Identifying borrowers who'd been swindled was another herculean task. Harris needed trusted, experienced canvassers to go door to door, and she knew where to find them.

"She turned to us to help bridge the gap with the community," said Bob Dean, business manager of Vacaville, Calif., Local 1245, which spans Northern California. "So many working people had lost their homes or were on the verge of losing them, and they needed to know that help was available and how to get it."

The local dispatched an army of organizing stewards, earning Harris' gratitude and respect. "I think it deepened her understanding of unions and who and what we fight for," Dean said. "She's become one of labor's strongest and most powerful allies, and we see it every day on the campaign trail."

Harris grew up in a Bay Area rental home with an immigrant mother who took her to civil rights marches and instilled a robust sense of justice and fair play.

She carried those values into her career, rising from deputy prosecutor to San Francisco's elected district attorney to state attorney general, taking on banks, drug companies, insurers, hospitals and for-profit colleges that defrauded working-class consumers out of billions of dollars.

Along the way, her bonds with the union movement kept growing, nourished by friends she'd made at the IBEW.

Brian D'Arcy, retired business manager of Los Angeles Local 18, met Harris at a dinner on the cusp of her run for attorney general.

"She walked into the restaurant with that infectious smile and was so engaging and smart," D'Arcy said. "After that, she started showing up at my office, sometimes unannounced, and we'd hang out and talk for a couple of hours."

Topics included Harris's concern about the disparate number of young Black men trapped by the criminal justice system in a cycle of poverty and incarceration.

"At the time, I was working on a utility pre-craft training program that gave students a paycheck while learning about all aspects of water and power, and also remedial reading and math, to get them ready for any number of entry-level jobs," D'Arcy said. "She was fascinated by that."

Today, Harris is a champion of union apprenticeships. As a U.S. senator, she backed bills to expand them and has been on a self-described mission as vice president to visit as many IBEW training centers as possible.

She hails the programs in speeches and seizes moments like the one Carol Kim witnessed last year.

Kim, business manager of the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council and a member of San Diego Local 569, had waited with an ironworker friend in a long receiving line for Harris at a holiday event.

"She was tired by the time we got up there, and I don't blame her for that at all. She'd been doing it for hours," said Kim, expecting only a fleeting encounter.

"I shook her hand and then introduced Jennifer as a journeywoman ironworker who teaches apprenticeship readiness programs for union trades," she said. "Kamala's face lit up. She just came to life and engaged with her in such a meaningful way. They chit-chatted so long that the staff started circling."

Kim first met Harris earlier in 2023 when the vice president and her staff hosted a group of California building trades leaders at the White House.

"She was terrific in that meeting, very strong, on point, and she knew the issues," Kim said. "She talked about PLAs. She understood why we need to continue the critical investments in infrastructure and how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act have impacted all of us and are supporting our members with good, union jobs."

Observing Harris in the national spotlight and thinking back on their talks years ago, D'Arcy said she is the same razor-sharp, focused, compassionate public servant she's always been. He's baffled by the absurdity of her opponents' lies and smears claiming otherwise

"It's all bizarro world," D'Arcy said. "She's one of the most intelligent people I've ever sat down with, and there's nothing fake about her. I've talked to a lot of politicians over the past 30 years, and I can tell you that Kamala Harris is the real deal."