This story was originally published by Rewire News Group, a national, nonprofit media organization exclusively dedicated to reporting on reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice.

Hope Walz had no intention of becoming a social media sensation when she first whipped out her phone to shoot a video with her brother, Gus. A few months ago, the Walz siblings—children of former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz—were headed back to their home state of Minnesota. Their father and his running mate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, had just lost the 2024 presidential election. And Hope Walz wanted to post an update.

From the front seat of a car, the pair described what it was like to drive without a Secret Service detail for the first time in months.

“We’re finally free,” Gus said from the driver’s seat.

“I would not describe it like that,” Hope replied. “It is a little weird, but it does feel freeing.”

“We’re going to be okay everyone,” she added, before posting the video to TikTok.

After spending months on the campaign trail with her dad, and watching Donald Trump and JD Vance clinch the White House, Walz was ready to return to her everyday life in Montana, where she’d settled after graduating college in 2023. Instead, the video she posted in the aftermath of the election quickly amassed more than 400,000 views. And her next video, breaking down her post-election thoughts, garnered 1 million. Now, Walz is navigating her newfound public platform while trying to map out a future career in public service—a decision inspired by her time on the campaign.

TikTok fame was never part of the plan, said Walz, who now has more than 400,000 followers and 4.2 million total likes on the social media platform. Prior to the election, all of her social media accounts were private. And despite being actively involved in campaign efforts, Walz said, she was urged by staffers to avoid posting until after the election was over.

“I didn’t think I was going to start posting on TikTok,” Walz said. “But then I’m like, ‘Okay people are pretty distraught over this. I should maybe say something.’ And then it kind of just went from there.”

A ‘servant leadership mindset’

Making social media content for mass consumption might be new to Walz, but she’s no stranger to coping with the pressures that come from being in the public eye.

Tim Walz was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives when Hope was 5 years old. When she was 17, he became the governor of Minnesota. And by the time she turned 23, he was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States.

“It’s kind of all I’ve ever known,” Walz said.

When her father first got into politics, Walz said, her parents made it a priority to keep life as “normal” as possible. Hope and Gus stayed in Minnesota with their mom, occasionally visiting Washington, D.C. for special events, like her dad’s swearing-in ceremony.

Walz also got a front-row seat to American democracy in action. She watched Nancy Pelosi get sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007. She recalled joining her father in a walk across the Edmund Pettus bridge as part of an event hosted by then-president Barack Obama and the late Rep. John Lewis to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery. Still, she always made it back home to Mankato, Minnesota in time for soccer practice

Kindness was a core family value growing up, Walz said. And before school every morning, her mother would encourage her to be open to learning from anyone who could teach her something new. The family motto was “good friend, good learner,” Walz said.

With a mother who worked as a teacher and a father who served as a veteran, teacher, and politician, public service and leadership were main lessons in their lives, Walz said. But she never felt pressured to follow in her father’s footsteps. Walz said her parents raised her to pursue her passions, regardless of what industry or area of study that fell under.

Still, the family values influenced her early trajectory and interest in pursuing a path that allowed her to give back.

“You do work for your community because it makes the world a better place,” Walz said.

It was with that spirit that Walz approached higher education, too. In 2019, Walz left Minnesota to pursue an undergraduate degree at Montana State University, where she studied sociology with a minor in women’s gender and sexuality studies.

The life lessons she learned growing up were front of mind when choosing a major, she said.

“I was very much coming from the lens of ‘what can I major in and get an education in, to then help people?’” Walz said.

Hitting the campaign trail

Walz graduated from college in 2023. In the months that followed, she decided to stay in Montana, working two jobs—one as a staff member at a local homeless shelter, where she sets up beds and helps make sure people are fed. She also works as a ski instructor.

But within a year, those plans would change. While Walz was busy getting settled into post-grad life in Montana, her father was slowly rising in the Democratic Party. In August 2024, while sick with strep throat and in the midst of moving into a new house, her life changed again when she got an urgent message from her parents.

“My parents called and they were like, ‘Honestly, there’s a fairly good chance it’s us, you should probably book a flight home,’” Walz said.

She boarded a plane in Montana that took her to San Francisco before finally making its way to Minneapolis. The next day, it was officially announced that her dad was chosen as Harris’ VP pick.

And even though things happened quickly, Walz said she wasn’t entirely surprised that her dad was chosen.

“Honestly, I kind of felt like it was going to be him from the beginning, and I don’t really know how to explain that … Some people just have ‘it,’ and I feel like he’s one of those people that has ‘it,’” Walz said. “I’m sure people disagree with this, but watching him do it from the time I was little until now, it’s always come so naturally to him, and that’s because I think it’s authentic. How he portrays himself, and what he says and does, is actually who he is.”

“To me, it kind of just made sense,” she continued. “I’m like, well yeah, this is what our politicians should be like.”

She said it was nice to see her father get recognition for the work he’s done over his career.

“To finally be able to see him and to see him bring hope into so many people was just so cool and so fun,” Walz said.

Election Day

When Election Day rolled around, Walz joined her family at a D.C. hotel to watch the results come in. In the early evening of November 6, the Walz family and campaign staffers noticed it wasn’t going in their direction.

“We saw some stuff almost immediately, and we were like, ‘This is odd and this is not going well,’” Walz said.

Walz said she couldn’t handle the reality she was being forced to face.

“I just freaked out,” she recalled. “I was screaming, crying.”

Her parents told her to go to bed, reminding her that the night was still young and anything could happen. She went to bed, but not for long.

“I woke up to my dad coming into my room,” Walz said. “‘We lost,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’”

The next day, the Walz family headed to Howard University for Harris’ concession speech. Only hours later, they were on their way back home to Minnesota.

‘I’ll never be a full-time influencer’

The week after the election, Walz posted 10 TikToks, racking up nearly 5 million total views. Everything she posted seemed to go viral. As her audience started to grow, she shared more about her life, her view on unfolding political events, and words of encouragement for those struggling with the new administration.

“This country does not deserve Kamala Harris,” she said in a viral video dissecting the election results. The video prompted hateful messages and headlines from outlets like The U.S. Sun, who called her “Tim Walz’s raging daughter.”

Another TikTok, captioned “day 3 post election thoughts,” depicted Walz talking about how she got back to a routine that made her feel good—she finally showered, brushed her teeth, and did her skin care routine. She went on to encourage people to use the sadness and heaviness they were feeling as motivation.

“Change happens starting at the ground level, and if we lean into that I’m confident that we will be ok,” Walz said in the video.

The post received over 90,000 likes.

She returned back to Montana about a week after the election and started posting videos about politics. But she also began showing more of her personal life—from being a ski instructor, to working at a homeless shelter, to the books she and her dad are reading.

“I get why people want to listen to me, because I was so close to the campaign. They resonate with what I’m saying,” Walz said. “I think there’s space in the next four years for me to have an important voice.”

And as her follower count started to increase, so did the hate comments left on her videos.

Walz said she learned to “tune out the bullshit” through filtering her comment section and ignoring hate comments.

“I just can’t let it get to me—granted, sometimes I do,” she said.

She said she knows she’s done something right when a TikTok of hers is widely discussed on other social media platforms.

“If there are people on X saying horrible things about me, what I said was the correct thing to say,” Walz said.

Walz never expected the impact her online presence would have. But while she plans on continuing to be active on social media, she said she’ll never make that her full time job.

“I’ll never be a full time influencer,” Walz said. “That’s not what I want.”

In addition to a newfound social media presence, traveling full-time on the campaign trail with her dad renewed her interest in politics. She said before this campaign, she just wanted to step away from politics and live her life in Montana. The 2024 election brought her back into the fold and made her realize she might want to pursue policy or advocacy after all.

“The people we met and the places we went are truly the best of America,” Walz said. “People do want what’s best for other people, even though it seems hard to think that right now.”

She also said hitting the campaign trail gave her a sense of peace and confidence.

“I’m sure time would have got me there, but I feel like I grew so much in 90 days there,” Walz said. “[It] probably would have taken me years to get there had this not happened.”

Moving forward, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in social work and stay in the realm of public policy. She hopes by studying social work, she can pivot into public policy work. Walz said she believes having this social media presence will allow her to have a bigger impact in the public policy space.

“I want to come at it from the angle that I was on the ground, I did the work, this is what’s really happening, and this is what we can do about it,” Walz said.

Despite the national platform she’s built online, she wants to continue gaining experience on the ground.

“I’m really going to focus on helping my local community, because I think that’s where we can hold things together for the next four years,” Walz said.