Tim Walz: A Minnesota Moderate in the Spotlight
How the incumbent governor’s 2022 victory offers lessons for Democrats nationwide
In 2018, when then-Rep. Tim Walz first ran for governor of Minnesota, he had the blue wave of anti-Trump organizing at his back and cruised to an easy victory by over 11 points. The Republican campaign attacks weren’t particularly beyond the pale.
But 2022 was different. Minnesota Republicans thought it was their turn to capitalize on what they thought was going to be a red wave. What’s more, thanks to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, rising inflation, and the aftermath of the George Floyd uprising in the Twin Cities, the MNGOP thought it had found wedge issues that would peel white suburban support away from Walz and take back the governor’s mansion.
National Republicans are likely to follow the same playbook as Minnesotans did in 2022. Now that Vice President Kamala Harris has named Tim Walz as her running mate, national Republicans are likely to follow the same playbook as Minnesotans did in 2022. Democrats need to be ready to meet the moment.
Every incumbent faced criticism over their response to the pandemic, as Covid presented challenges to which there were few answers. Minnesota Republicans fixed on two approaches — first, that Walz had abused his emergency powers in mandating masks and closing down businesses during the height of the lockdown. Second, that Walz’s lax oversight was at least partially responsible for a massive fraud in which criminals stole $250 million in pandemic relief funds intended to feed kids.
Republicans paired this with attacks blaming Walz for poor decisions during the George Floyd uprising, which they suggested had led to the destruction of property (especially a police precinct) and what they characterized as an ongoing crime wave that had turned the Twin Cities into an apocalyptic hellhole. The Republican hope was that by cloaking racism in “what about crime” rhetoric, while also blaming Walz for inflation, they could peel away key white voting demographics.
In the days before the election, the MNGOP put out a video alleging, “Since Gov. Tim Walz took office, our streets are less safe, families pay more for what they need every day, and children have fallen way behind in school.”
Picturing Walz next to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress, and later the first Muslim elected to a statewide office), a popular MNGOP target for racist attacks, the GOP blamed Walz for soaring prices and rising crime, and claimed the Covid lockdowns meant children were struggling in schools.
These kinds of attacks play neatly into the current rhetoric of the Trump-Vance campaign, and we’re likely to see them resurface over the next three months.
But the lessons from Minnesota offer counters to such attacks.
First of all, the Twin Cities are generally an exceptionally pleasant place to live, work, and visit — are not, in fact, a hellhole. Violent crime is declining, if still too high.
The most salient criticisms of Walz come from the left — that he has, for example, been too harsh in clearing encampments for unhoused people, though even on that issue, many critics acknowledge that Walz has provided much more in the way of resources to aid those experiencing homelessness.
Second, of course, is Walz himself. He’s a white, male, football coach, social studies teacher, Army veteran from downstate Minnesota — an agricultural and rural area. He’s consistently overcome — or at least limited the effectiveness of — attempts to divide the state between rural and urban, white, and communities of color.
And third, he’s aggressively “normal” in an era when Republicans are aggressively weird, as Walz has been saying for months.
His opponents in 2022 were Scott Jensen, a retired doctor turned celebrity anti-vaxxer and promoter of former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, and Matt Birk, a retired NFL football player best known for questioning whether women should have careers and blaming Democrats for “playing the rape card” in the fight over reproductive freedom. It turns out that in the face of conspiracy-mongering and sexism, it’s hard to keep people focused on the price of milk and gas.
Jensen and Birk were weird and off-putting. In 2022, Walz won the governorship by over 8 points. Other statewide elections were closer, but the MNGOP still hasn’t won any state contests since 2006. They’re too weird.
Trump and Vance are no less weird or extreme in their policy proposals. And so as they pick up the Minnesota Republican playbook against Walz, it’s hard to believe they’re going to do any better. Or at least, clearly, the Harris campaign looked into the heartland, saw a teacher, coach, and veteran, and believed that he could be the next Minnesotan to serve as vice president.
It’s a proud history. It hasn’t yet worked out as well when Minnesota VPs run for president, but hopefully, that’s a problem we can worry about in 2032.
