Now the Minnesota governor is Kamala Harris’ running mate, where he’ll help Democrats pursue the art of confusion.
What voters see in Tim Walz may not be what they get.
“He seems like kind of a straight-shooter, straight-talker kind of guy that you could have a conversation with as Trump voters. That’s certainly what Kamala Harris hopes she will get from him,” Moses Bratrud, director of strategy for the Minnesota Family Council, said on Washington Watch Tuesday.
The New York Times wrote Wednesday morning that Walz will being “Midwestern dad energy” to the ticket.
In some ways that type of common-sense Democratic conservatism was how Walz was branded when he served a rural Minnesota district for 12 years in the U.S. House, Bratrud told show host Jody Hice.
“He had a reputation for moderation. He focused on veterans’ issues, kept his head down to some extent, didn’t really make a huge splash,” Bratrud said.
But when Waltz was elected governor in 2018, defeating Republican Jeff Johnson with 52.7% of the vote, he began to change. He left the city of Minneapolis unguarded and stood as the protector of lawlessness during the riots after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“I’m in my home in St. Paul, smelling the smoke, seeing the boarded-up windows wondering why is the governor not calling out the National Guard? What’s the delay here? In fact, during that rioting he waited three days, while the city burned, to send out the National Guard,” Bratrud said.
“It was Tim Walz who ordered that there would be no pushback against the Antifa, Black Lives Matter rioters,” former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann told AFN.
“He was one of the worst governors in America on COVID,” Bachmann continued. “He had mask mandates, vaccine mandates. The schools were closed. School children committed suicide because they were staying at home. They weren’t allowed to go to school.”
When Walz’ left views started to shine
The real turn for Walz came in his second term. On one day in January of 2023, shortly after his reelection, Walz signed bills that allowed the state to take children from parents who refused them gender-manipulation treatments, banned mental health practitioners from offering therapy for minors with gender questions and made Minnesota a safe haven for abortion doctors who face criminal charges in other states, Bratrud said.
Walz’ record on abortion, alarming to pro-life groups, is something that makes him proud.
“One of the main bills he signed removed all existing abortion restrictions from Minnesota state code,” Ben Dorr, executive director of Minnesota Right to Life, told AFN. “It even gutted the protections for children born alive during a botched abortion. He could not be a further left pro-abortion extremist than he is. He’s the worst in the country.”
Walz has also signed legislation that makes it illegal for libraries to ban books solely because of LGBTQ material.
The Hill says Walz has made Minnesota an LGBTQ refuge.
At the start of his second term “we saw a huge twist to the left,” Bratrud said. “Each of these bills puts kids in our state at risk.”
About that teaching experience
Circumspect voters will need to sift through the stories of Walz in his mid-30s as a social studies teacher in Mankato, a city of 45,000 a short drive southwest of Minneapolis.
If they do, they’ll see that Walz was the faculty adviser to Mankato West High School’s first gay-straight alliance group.
“That’s the Tim Walz that we’re worried about. There’s going to be the slick campaign consultants who come in and help him appear moderate on the campaign trail so he can help Kamala Harris win states like Michigan and Wisconsin, but we know who the real Tim Walz is here in Minnesota,” Bratrud said.
Walz’ selection as Harris’ running mate could not offer greater contrast between the Democrat and Republican parties, Blaze show host Daniel Horowitz said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
“Tim Walz embodies anarcho-tyranny where under his stewardship you were allowed to burn down businesses, but you weren’t allowed to open businesses,” Horowitz told show host Jenna Ellis.
As America continues to process the news, it’s a choice that excites both sides.
Christopher DeVine, an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton, told Newsweek that Walz is “well-qualified” for the job.
Walz, a surprise pick when many signs pointed to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, is the first strong signal that Harris can make good decisions, he said.
“His selection should reassure voters about Kamala Harris’ judgment as a potential president,” DeVine said. “She could have made the more politically expedient choice by picking Shapiro simply to win his home state and perhaps help win the election. But he is a first-term governor who has never served in federal office and lacks foreign policy experience. Walz is a two-term governor who served for more than a decade in Congress.”
Simple strategy if Trump stays on message
Horowitz said the Harris-Walz ticket should make things easier for former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, if, and this is a big if, Trump can stay on message.
“If you look at the issues of this election, inflation, invasion, indoctrination, crime, Hamas … on all five of those the Democrats could not have embraced and worn themselves on their sleeves more than they did with Harris and Walz.
“If you accentuate those issues and elevate them to the point that the election becomes about that, it’s hard to see how Republicans lose,” Horowitz continued. “If it ultimately becomes about distractions and personalities, I think we know how that ends.”
