Republican lawmakers were quick to respond to Vice President Kamala Harris’s decision to tap Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate for the 2024 race, criticizing the pair as the “most radical” ticket in U.S. history.

“The Democrat Party makes history as they anoint Harris-Walz to the ballot this November representing the most radical Far Left wing ticket in history,” House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said in a statement. “Walz was a failed Member of Congress, is a failed Governor who supported Defund the Police BLM that torched cities to the ground. All while Kamala fundraised to bail out violent criminals from prison.”

The vice presidential pick was announced Tuesday morning after weeks of a vigorous vetting process by former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder and one-time Biden White House counsel Dana Remus. The top three contenders became Walz, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

Shapiro was thought to be the favored pick in recent days, with Republicans accusing Harris of snubbing him the No. 2 position because of “anti-Semitism in their own caucus.”

“The far Left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), former President Donald Trump’s choice for vice president, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this week.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee also jumped on that accusation, using Harris’s pick of Walz over Shapiro as an early attack.

“Kamala Harris didn’t select Josh Shapiro for one reason: Shapiro is Jewish. That says a lot about today’s Democratic Party,” NRSC communications director Mike Berg said in a statement.

Top Republicans from Minnesota were also quick to hit out against Walz, accusing the governor of implementing similar policies as Harris while in office.

“It’s not surprising Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to be her running mate — he embodies the same disastrous economic, open-borders, and soft-on-crime policies Harris has inflicted on our country the last four years,” said House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), the highest GOP lawmaker in the House from Minnesota. “Walz is an empty suit who has worked to turn Minnesota into Harris’ home state of California, and solidifies this ticket’s full embrace of a radical, America-last agenda.”

Walz, 60, a former Army National Guardsman and social studies teacher before he ran for the House of Representatives in 2006, was thought to bring executive experience rather than a battleground state, having been Minnesota‘s governor since 2018. Folksy Midwestern Walz, who was favored by Biden, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, was behind the Harris campaign beginning to undermine Trump and Vance as “weird.”

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Harris and her vice presidential pick will now embark on a five-day, seven-state battleground tour, scheduled to start in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, to introduce themselves to the public and underscore what is at stake this election. He already has a Harris campaign chief of staff in Liz Allen, who was most recently the State Department‘s assistant secretary for global public affairs.

Harris announced her presidential understudy before an Aug. 7 deadline, two weeks before this cycle’s Democratic National Convention, after a political fight with Ohio‘s Republican-controlled legislature over the Buckeye State’s ballot access laws. Although Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) signed legislation extending the state’s deadline so Biden and then Harris could appear on its ballots, Democrats have remained adamant Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Trump ally, could cause problems and held a virtual roll call vote instead during the last week.

Naomi Lim contributed to this report.