Sarah Smith
North America editor

Image source, EPA

Two weeks ago, Tim Walz had never given a speech using an autocue. But you wouldn’t know it listening to him addressing the Democratic convention.

A former high school teacher and football coach he basically gave a pep talk to his party, telling them they will need to put in the work to get him and Kamala Harris elected to the White House.

This brand new team of Walz and Harris have brought a fresh energy that has reinvigorated Democrats.

But senior party strategists are worried it is all going too well.

That Democrats now believe they are winning when in fact the polls suggest the race is tied and that sooner or later Donald Trump will work out how to define and attack Harris. Then the race will get much tougher.

This ends our live coverage for now, but we'll be back in Chicago for more from the Democratic convention when Kamala Harris speaks to her supporters.

• To read more analysis of the night click here, or listen to the Americast podcast here.

Image source, Reuters

With one more day of the Democratic National Convention to go, here's a quick look at what happened on Wednesday.

1. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepted the nomination for vice-president. He touted the campaign's stance on reproductive rights and gun control, and said "we're gonna leave it all on the field"
2. The night was filled with celebrities, including Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey. She urged Democrats to elect Harris for "freedom"
3. Former US President Bill Clinton delivered his speech, and accused Trump of being "about me, myself and I", and Nancy Pelosi - reportedly instrumental in convincing Biden to drop out of the race - thanked him for his service
4. A group of "uncommitted" pro-Palestinian delegates announced they wouldn't be given a main stage convention slot
5. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Trump a "chaos agent" and compared him to an "old boyfriend" who "just won't go away"

The penultimate day of the Democratic National Convention saw big names take to the stage in support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Television legend Oprah Winfrey received a standing ovation after delivering a rousing speech, Bill Clinton poked fun at Donald Trump and Tim Walz was joined on stage by his family as he accepted his nomination for the Democratic vice-presidential candidate.

Image source, Getty Images

Beyoncé has threatened to send a cease-and-desist letter to the Trump campaign after one of the ex-president's aides posted a video which features one of her songs, according to Rolling Stone.

The song in question is Freedom, which Beyoncé formally gave permission to the Harris campaign to use.

On Tuesday, aide Steven Cheung posted 13 seconds of the song playing as Trump exits his plane ahead of a rally in Michigan.

The clip, posted to X/Twitter, is still up.

Multiple musicians have formally objected to Trump's campaign using their songs, including the Rolling Stones, Adele, Rihanna and the Sinead O’Connor estate.

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump's vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has accused Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and their fellow Democrats of failing to offer America a positive vision.

Speaking to CNN's Washington anchor Jake Tapper, Vance said they had instead made a series of personal attacks on Donald Trump.

Trump's policies "worked very well" for middle class Americans, he said, in response to Walz speech on Wednesday.

Vance also said Harris was part of an administration which had made Americans poorer. "Her policies had in fact caused a lot of the problems and a lot of the suffering that we see in this country," he said.

Here's a moment from earlier when Oprah Winfrey seemed to reference JD Vance's now-famous comment on childless women.

Most Americans, she says, "do the best we can" to help people, even if they are "childless cat ladies".

Image source, Getty Images

US celebrity Oprah Winfrey made a surprise appearance earlier in the evening, where she urged Democrats to "choose common sense over nonsense".

November's election is a fight for "freedom", she said. "Freedom isn't free," she said, quoting the late civil rights leader John Lewis.

“Let us choose truth, let us choose honour, let us choose joy,” Winfrey told a cheering crowd on Wednesday. “Because that is the best of America.”

The billionaire media mogul has shied away from politics in recent years, but lent some of her star power to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on the third night of the convention.

Here's more on Winfrey's speech at the DNC.

Walz campaigning to be nation's coachpublished at 07:04 British Summer Time 22 August

07:04 BST 22 August

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America correspondent, reporting from the convention

Tim Walz is running for vice-president, but for a while on Wednesday night, it felt like he was campaigning to be the nation’s high school football coach.

Before he spoke, roughly a dozen of the players on the team he helped coach to a state championship decades ago ran on stage, some wearing their old high-school jerseys, bouncing to the blasting horns of a marching band.

Once Walz did appear, delegates in the packed arena waved signs that read “Coach Walz” – and the crowd chanted “coach, coach, coach!”

It was Walz's first significant chance to introduce himself to the nation, and it's clear the image of Walz as coach is one the campaign wants the American public to remember.

In closing, he poured on the football metaphors, promising a pep-talk as the crowd again chanted “coach”.

“It’s the fourth quarter,” he said. “We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense. We’re driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team to win this.”

Democrats are hoping Walz's flat midwestern accent, his somewhat rotund physique and his thinning hair – combined with the small-town coach speak – will appeal to the kind of voters who have abandoned the Democratic Party when Trump is on the ballot.

Today's festivities have concluded in Chicago, and here are the highlights of the third day of the Democratic National Convention.

• Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris's running mate, spoke about his family and small-town values in a personal and emotional speech
• Walz touted his military service, his record as governor and the campaign's stances on reproductive rights and gun control. And he repeated a line he's used on the campaign trail several times already: "Mind your own damn business"

• Earlier in the evening, Oprah Winfrey made a surprise appearance on stage, telling the raucous crowd to remember that this election is about "freedom"
• Former US President Bill Clinton took aim at Donald Trump. "In 2024, we have a clear choice: 'We The People' versus 'Me, myself, and I,’" he told the crowd. "I know which one I like better for our country.”

• Delegates also heard from Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker widely reported to have led the push for Joe Biden to end his presidential campaign. She praised Harris and thanked Biden for his service to the country
• Tensions over the war in Gaza were still evident, as pro-Palestinian "uncommitted" delegates had their request for a speaking slot denied by party leaders and protests continued outside the convention site

• And in North Carolina, Donald Trump appeared behind bullet-proof glass for his first outdoor rally since an assassination attempt in July

There's one more day to go - on Thursday, the convention will culminate with a speech by Kamala Harris.

Image source, Getty Images

During Walz's speech earlier, he mentioned the fertility treatments he and his wife received to have their children.

This has been the subject of some controversy after Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz's wife released a statement this week clarifying how she became pregnant and sharing that it was not through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), as the Harris-Walz campaign had previously said.

Gwen Walz said in her statement that she underwent intrauterine inception (IUI). Unlike IVF, IUI is a fertility treatment that does not rely on frozen embryos and is not potentially impacted by abortion restrictions.

Governor Walz has spoken many times about the couple's infertility struggles, a chapter of their lives that he now brings up while campaigning about abortion access and IVF.

He has described Republican attacks on IVF as "personal" for him, saying in an interview last month: “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children.”

A spokeswoman for the Harris campaign said Walz had been using "commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments”.

Mike Wendling
Reporting from the convention

Image source, BBC / Catriona Perry

If there's one fact that viewers will take away from tonight's proceedings, it's that Tim Walz is big into football - the American version that is.

We've seen his championship team on stage, and in an extended metaphor, the Minnesota governor compares the presidential race to a close match.

He says the Democratic Party ticket is like a team down a field goal late in the game - but they have the ball, and a good squad, and they need their supporters to fight in the trenches, doing the grunt work of blocking and tackling.

To many Americans - particularly in the football-mad Midwest - these are easily relatable, folksy references.

But even if American football baffles you, they're still pretty easy to understand - this is going to be a tight election, and Harris and Walz need all the help they can get from the delegates in this arena.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from the convention

Most people have left the arena after the speeches have concluded, but not the Minnesota delegates. They’re on the floor waving signs with his face and chanting “Tim Walz” over and over.

Alfred Walking Bull, a delegate from Minnesota, says he doesn’t usually cry at political events, but by the end of the speech, he was “in tears”.

“I was so damn proud of Tim,” the 42-year-old says. “He brought all the fire and all the respectability and all the joy and all of the honour."

Then they start a call-and-response chant of "Minne-sota".

Image source, Madline Halpert / BBC

Jonathan Csapo
BBC Producer, reporting from Chicago

Image source, Jonathan Csapo / BBC

A happy Minnesota delegation has stayed on the floor tonight despite most of stadium having cleared out.

They’re chanting “Harris Walz”, “Let’s go coach!”, “We want Tim!”, and high-fiving each other.

VP nominee Walz is the governor of the state.

Courtney Subramanian
Reporting from the convention

Freedom has quickly become a prominent campaign theme for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz - a word that the vice-president has long championed in her previous campaigns.

So much so that Harris began using Beyonce's Freedom as her entrance song before she was named the party's nominee and in the weeks since.

But Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has opted for the classic rock version, choosing Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World from the Canadian American rockstar's album Freedom.

Though Harris's choice is considered an uplifting anthem, Young's take on freedom was meant to be a political criticism of the George HW Bush administration.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from convention floor

Walz’s speech was a hit with the delegates from Virginia sitting just next to me in the arena.

“It’s amazing. It’s everything. Who would not vote for that?” says Mark Lazar. He says Walz’s speech was “genuine in the sense that you can’t make it up”.

Jessica Nichols, another delegate from Virginia, says Walz is like a “young Joe Biden”.

“He’s the guy that mows the lawn when you’re sick,” she says.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the convention

Image source, Getty Images

Tim Walz's family joined him on stage, including his wife Gwen and his two children, Gus and Hope.

Their son, Gus, recently came into the national spotlight through a People Magazine piece in which the couple discussed his neurodivergence - he has a non-verbal learning disorder and has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

In the article, his family referred to Gus's neurodivergence as a "super power".

"Like so many American families, it took us time to figure out how to make sure we did everything we could to make sure Gus would be set up for success as he was growing up," the couple said.

His wife, Gwen, has been an educator for more than two decades. She prioritised education and criminal justice reform, initiatives that could see traction in Washington with a Harris-Walz White House.

The 58-year-old met the Minnesota governor when the two were teaching in Nebraska.

• Read more about Gwen Walz here

Fact-checking claims about Tim Walz’s military recordpublished at 04:46 British Summer Time 22 August

04:46 BST 22 August

Tim Walz's military record has become an issue on the campaign trail, as his Republican counterpart, JD Vance, has accused him of shying away from duty in Iraq and dishonestly claiming to have served in combat.

Walz brought up his military record again during his speech tonight. He served 24 years in the National Guard.

In February 2005, while he was still in the National Guard, Walz filed an application to run for Congress. The following month it was announced that there would be a possible mobilisation of 2,000 Minnesota National Guard troops to Iraq.

Walz said at the time he wasn't sure if his unit would be part of that deployment, but that he would continue his Congressional run. He retired from the National Guard in May 2005. His unit received orders to mobilise two months later, and was sent there the following year.

BBC Verify has been looking into the facts around Walz's military record - you can read more here.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from the convention floor

Image source, Reuters

It’s an electric energy in the crowd when Walz finishes his speech, as delegates and volunteers chant: “When we fight, we win.”

People continue to wave their Coach Walz signs in the air and cheer for Walz and his family who have taken the stage.

Walz finishes his speech with a football metaphor, harkening back to his time as a coach.

"You know, I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this one in my life," he says, referring to his relatively small national profile before being chosen as Harris's running mate.

"But I’ve given a lot of pep talks. So let me finish with this, team," he says as the crowds starts a chant of "coach".

"It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal," he says. "But we’re on offense. We’re driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team."

"We're going to leave it all on the field," he says, with only about 76 days left before the election.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from the convention floor

As Walz mentions the struggles he and his wife faced to conceive, the camera flashes to his children, Hope and Gus, who are in tears sitting next to their mother.

They're sitting in the front row and look on as their father talks about why he named his first daughter “Hope”.