Steve Kornacki Explodes Claim of Tim Walz’s Rural Appeal on MSNBC: ‘You Don’t See It In What He Actually Did on the Ballot’

NBC News and MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki delivered some bad news for Democrats hoping that Minnesota Governor — and their presumptive vice presidential nominee — Tim Walz might help them win back rural parts of the Rust Belt on Tuesday, concluding that “you don’t see it in what he actually did on the ballot.”

“I think that [Walz’s] background , the small town background, the military background, Democrats are hoping it’s going to help them. You’re hearing a lot about this here as we take a look at our battleground map here. They’re hoping it’s going to help him in these three very familiar battleground states. We always talk about Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” began Kornacki before noting that Democrats have been struggling in the rural parts of these states for years. “Let’s take a look here at how Tim Walz did — this is the 2022 governor’s race in Minnesota. Now, he was reelected, you can see here by an eight point margin. But the key is when you look at Minnesota and you look for those areas I’m describing where the Democrats have been losing ground in Wisconsin and Michigan and PA.”

He continued:

And how did Walz do in these areas where you see a ton of red? But I think this is the key. We’ll show you one county here, for example. this could be a stand in for many. This is Stearns County, this is in greater Minnesota, this is similar to a lot of the the terrain you see in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Walz lost this by 23 points. How does that compare to Joe Biden in 2020? Joe Biden lost the same county by 23 points. How does that compare to Hillary Clinton in 2016? Hillary Clinton lost it by 28 points.

And now here’s the key, because this county Democrats used to be much more competitive in. Look at this, in 2012, Barack Obama won 43% of the vote in this county. It was only a little bit more than ten points that he lost to Romney by here. The floor fell out for Democrats here when Trump came along in that Clinton race in 2016, and they haven’t recovered it since. And that Walz performance here, it’s a little less than Biden’s number, it’s more than Clinton’s, and it’s a far cry from what Obama was doing here.

And again, I’m showing you one, this is a stand in for dozens of counties in Minnesota where you saw the same thing with large rural populations, blue collar white populations, where Obama in some of them he was winning, others he was holding his own just a dozen years ago, this is where Democrats have lost ground. And Walz in 2022, he didn’t gain any ground that the Democrats had lost. He didn’t do that here, he didn’t do that in other counties. Walz really owes his victory, that big mar — that margin he got, eight points there statewide, he owes it to the Twin Cities area here, the area where Democrats in Minnesota and all these other states are already doing well.

“Look at his electoral history, Tim Walz’s in 2022, and the idea that he’s got this automatic appeal with these small town areas in those three key battleground states, you don’t see it in what he actually did on the ballot in 2022,” concluded Kornaki. “Now, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. You know, see how this story once it gets told, how does it resonate with voters? Does it? I mean, could. You have no idea of knowing when these things start. But what we can look at here is what he’s actually done as a candidate in Minnesota. And honestly, when you look at Walz’s victory in 2022 in Minnesota, it looks like Biden’s victory in Minnesota in 2020 — not a different coalition.”

Watch above via MSNBC.