Dear Commons Community,

Gus Walz, the son of Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Walz, was visibly emotional as he cheered on his father at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.

“That’s my dad!” Gus Walz, the 17-year-old son of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, mouthed, blinking through a flow of tears in the audience.

He rose to his feet and pointed emphatically at his father, who had just shouted him out in the most consequential speech of his political career. His sister, Hope, 23, seated next to him, held up her hands in a heart sign.

Against stiff competition — speeches from Oprah Winfrey and former President Bill Clinton, plus a Prince tribute — the moment would become one of the night’s most resonant on social media.  As reported by The New York Times. 

Within hours, the cutaway to Gus circulated on TikTok, Instagram and X in posts that have received hundreds of thousands of views. Many of them were accompanied by the hashtag #ThatsMyDad. Another hashtag, #TeamGus, was trending on X on Thursday morning.

“Tim Walz was the headliner, but his son, Gus, won the night on social media,” Cory Smith, an NBC10 Boston anchor, wrote online.

Many supporters of the Harris campaign said they appreciated the Walz family’s unabashed displays of affection for one another. Several linked it to the more expressive version of masculinity that Mr. Walz has espoused on the campaign trail.

“You know you’ve done well as a parent when your kids are as proud of you as Gus and Hope are of Tim Walz,” Senator Amy Klobuchar wrote in a post that has been viewed more than a million times. “‘That’s my dad,’” she added, “No three words better describe our next Vice President.”

Some said Gus’s reaction had brought additional warmth to the Democratic ticket, which just two weeks earlier had gained the plain-spoken Minnesota governor as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. “To see the way that he looks at his father just has me in my feels,” said Brenton Guice, a therapist and content creator, in a TikTok video.

But in more conservative spheres online, some Trump supporters posted split-screen images of Gus in tears alongside more stoic ones of Barron Trump, the former president’s youngest son, with one social media user calling Gus “an example of what is wrong with this country.” Politico reported on Thursday that the conservative commentator Ann Coulter posted and deleted a message on X that described Gus as “weird,” the term that Mr. Walz has used to disparage Mr. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.

Such posts were fiercely criticized by other commenters, who pointed out that Gus is a minor and that his family has said he has a learning disorder.

Gus is the younger of Tim and Gwen Walz’s two children, who were conceived after the couple’s yearslong fertility struggle. The couple said in a statement to People magazine this month that Gus had seemed different from his classmates as a child: “Gus preferred video games and spending more time by himself.”

They learned when Gus was an adolescent that he had “a nonverbal learning disorder in addition to an anxiety disorder and A.D.H.D., conditions that millions of Americans also have.” Nonverbal learning disorders affect a person’s ability to process visual and social patterns. (It is a common misconception that people with nonverbal learning disorders do not speak.)

“It took time, but what became so immediately clear to us was that Gus’s condition is not a setback — it’s his secret power,” the Walzes added in their statement to People.

Mr. Walz, a former high school football coach, approached the stage at the United Center in Chicago on Wednesday night as if it were a giant pep rally, using sports metaphors to urge Democrats to make a fourth-quarter comeback against Mr. Trump.

In his 16-minute speech, Mr. Walz also discussed his family’s experience in having children with the help of fertility treatments — a topic rarely broached by male political candidates. He used the point to underscore his support for reproductive rights.

“Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world, and I love you,” he said from the stage. “I’m letting you in on how we started a family because this is a big part about what this election is about.”

When the speech concluded, Gus, wearing a blue suit and white Nike Air Force 1 sneakers, joined his father onstage and wrapped him in a tight embrace.

God bless Tim Walz and his family!

Tony

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