Whether Kamala Harris wins or loses, it is extremely likely that at some point in the very near future, Tim Walz will sign a lucrative book deal.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz is, on paper, less wealthy than the typical vice-presidential candidate; he doesn’t own a home or many investments outside of pensions and a college-savings plan, according to past financial disclosures and tax returns. (But those pensions are considerable, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.)
I wouldn’t lose much sleep about Walz’s finances, though. Whether Kamala Harris wins or loses, it is extremely likely that at some point in the very near future, Walz will get a lucrative book deal. (It will be more lucrative if Harris wins, obviously. I’ll leave it to you to predict the title, but I’ll bet the words “Midwestern” and “dad” end up in there. Or maybe “coach.”)
If Harris wins, Walz will likely sign the book deal in between the election and swearing-in. There is no rule or law that bars a sitting or incoming president, vice president, or governor from signing a book deal, although the U.S. House of Representatives sets limits on publishing contracts. Politicians seem to think that if they sign the deal before formally taking office, this makes it more ethical. The publisher and politician are not required to disclose the terms, but if Walz continues the tradition of the vice president releasing his tax returns, we’ll know in a year or two how much he made in the book deal in that year.
Harris has written several books in her career: Smart on Crime, published in 2009; The Truths We Hold (with a separate young readers’ edition), published in 2019 when she was a senator, shortly before she announced her presidential campaign; and the children’s book Superheroes Are Everywhere, also published in January 2019. That year, Harris earned a $446,875 advance for the book and an additional $49,900 for the young readers’ edition.
Harris made $450,000 from book royalties in 2021 and $80,000 in 2022.
A generous book deal, with a large advance and publicity tour, is now standard issue for a Democratic official on the national stage. Plenty of Republicans sign generous book deals, too, as well as Supreme Court justices.
There are those who have questioned whether politicians’ book deals represent safe bets for publishers, or whether this is a backdoor way for the publishing industry to reward political figures it likes. Way back in April 2013, then-governor Andrew Cuomo signed a book deal with HarperCollins, worth more than $700,000; sales were exceptionally low, even by the standards of politicians’ books. (Cuomo was effectively paid $245 per book sold.) Then after the pandemic, Cuomo signed another deal worth more than $5 million. In 2021, a state ethics board ruled that Cuomo could not keep the profits, but in 2022, that decision was overturned by a New York state supreme court judge.
National party committees and political action committees sometimes make bulk purchases of politicians’ books, often giving them as gifts to party donors.
Once you’re selected to be on a national party ticket, your family finances get better because of lucrative opportunities — book deals, teaching gigs, and after you leave office, speaking gigs and corporate board seats. No matter how the 2024 election shakes out, Tim Walz is going to become a much wealthier man in the near future.