During his time in office, Tim Walz has delivered one of the strongest progressive agendas of any governor in the country, achieving major platform wins such as free meals for Minnesota students, huge infrastructure investments, tax credits for low-income families and a consistent record of keeping the state budget out of the red. In the last few weeks, it seems many have forgotten these facts in the wake of several fraud schemes.
That’s not to say that fraud hasn’t been a problem in Minnesota over the past few years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a surge of aid from the federal government to states and a broad relaxation of guardrails protecting federal funding from fraudsters. Some instances of alleged fraud have resulted in arrests, such as the 78 people arrested in connection with a plot that reportedly led to the loss of $250 million dollars in funds designated for child nutrition. These are not isolated incidents, either, but rather an “industrial scale” effort to steal taxpayer funds, according to an Assistant U.S. Attorney, who estimated that over nine billion dollars could have been stolen.
A tipping point for Walz was the huge wave of attention that came in the wake of a YouTube video posted by a right-wing creator, Nick Shirley, titled “I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal.” His investigation boiled down to banging on the door of a few daycare centers and asking to see the children there (unsurprisingly, staff were less than willing to let a stranger in, much less one with a camera crew). Apparently, though, this was enough to be considered serious investigative journalism by equally serious news outlets such as Fox News, which quickly picked up the story and spread it in right-wing circles.
The pressure on Walz and other prominent Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) members came quickly and from all angles. President Trump and his allies began a campaign against Walz, and last Monday, Walz announced that he would not seek a third term as governor. As the right has celebrated, the left has to ask themselves the question, “How did it fall apart so quickly?”
In Aug. 2024, when Kamala Harris picked Walz to be her Vice President during her campaign, he was on top of the world. He was widely embraced by the Democratic Party for his policy that came across as both progressive enough for the far left and palatable enough for the more moderate wing. From the start, he was painted as a folksy guy by the Harris campaign, someone who liked teaching and eating “white guy tacos.” While the efforts were meant to appeal to rural voters and undecided moderates, they seemed to fall flat.
The first problem was a fundamental misunderstanding by the Harris campaign about what made Tim Walz such a successful candidate in the first place. In his own campaigns, Walz focused on issues that directly affected his constituents’ lives, like labor laws, veterans’ benefits and the costs of having children. What made him so successful was the concrete, straightforward plan he had to improve the state. The Harris campaign tried to replicate the bipartisan and rural “vibes” Walz brought to the table in his earlier campaigning efforts. It did not work, and as Trump was elected, public perception of Walz from a lot of the country was shifting from a talented executive to the funnel-cake-eating guy who lost Kamala the election.
After the election, Walz found himself in the national spotlight, his newfound fame bringing his everyday decisions into the national news. He has been targeted frequently by President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly insulted and threatened him on social media platform “Truth Social.” Suddenly, Walz had to contend with the camera being on him at all times. Increased scrutiny, increased attacks, and a Republican Party who believe they have a shot at claiming seats left empty in 2026 have led to a target on the back of Walz and Minnesota as a whole.
The last few months have placed our state squarely in the middle of the war between the president and Democratic state officials. Recent breaking news stories about fraud, both real and fictitious, have given Republicans the excuse they need to come after Walz with no holds barred. Fox News has posted dozens of articles in the last week attacking Walz and attempting to highlight the fraud as a central part of his time as governor.
While all of this was happening, Minnesota’s Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman, was assassinated in her home along with her husband. It doesn’t seem like an impossible leap to suggest that the president’s constant rhetoric about Walz and his allies played a role. Even so, since the shooting, for which a man has been indicted on numerous federal charges, Trump has continued to attack Walz and other DFL members, taking to social media recently to push claims that Walz himself ordered the murder.
I can’t say I blame Walz for wanting to step aside from the campaign trail, given all that has happened. With the DFL’s already shaky hold on Minnesota, it seems unlikely that a third Walz campaign would find the success of the first two. Any Democrat hoping to hold office in the state of Minnesota will be hard-pressed to escape the narrative of fraud that is quickly overshadowing his otherwise positive reputation.
Senator Amy Klobuchar is expected to run for Walz’s position in 2026. A late start to a bid for executive office after an unpopular candidate is switched out seems all too familiar, and Walz is certainly aware of the problems created by Biden’s refusal to drop out of the 2024 election. Walz’s decision could have been a preventative measure, doing what Biden refused to do until just 108 days before the election.
However tarnished Walz’s reputation will be in the eyes of the general public is yet to be decided, but his impact will remain for far longer than his term in office. His improvements to infrastructure, strengthening of welfare programs and huge investments in education will be looked back on favorably. Hopefully, Democrats will be able to look back on Walz’s story in the future and take the right lessons away: substance is what gets people elected, not just vibes.