Tim Walz takes his progressive record in Minnesota nationwide

I grew up in Minnesota and used to work for the state GOP. I’m a bit surprised to see Vice President Kamala Harris choose Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate. He boasts a progressive record, and a poor one, at that. Plus, she didn’t really need Minnesota’s electoral votes — she had already spiked 10 points. But Harris likely could have benefited from pairing with Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA).

Still, Harris’s choice means something — and it’s not good. Democrats aren’t hiding how far to the left they want to go anymore. With Walz at her side, it’s clear Harris and the Democratic Party are going full speed ahead in a more progressive direction.

Tim Walz, progressive model

Walz’s progressive record provides insight into how he would act as vice president. It should be clarifying for Republicans, if not downright scary. According to observers of local politics, Walz adapted one persona to get elected and morphed back to his true self once he had the keys to the governor’s mansion on beautiful Summit Avenue.

When Walz first ran for Congress, he seemed like the neighbor you’d like to have a beer or go hunting with. He was even endorsed by the National Rifle Association. But when Walz ran for governor, he sensed Minnesotans' values had changed, so he did, too.

“Now [Walz is] a progressive darling trying to make Minnesota a magnet, a mecca of liberalism,” Scott Cottington, a GOP consultant based in Minnesota, told the Washington Examiner in 2023.

After Tuesday’s announcement, former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty still dubbed Walz “Bernie Sanders in hunting gear,” such is Walz’s progressive record.

Fiscally, Walz embraces socialist policies. Thanks to high taxes — Minnesotans are taxed at nearly 10% for the highest earners — among other components, in 2023, the state wound up with a massive surplus, $18 billion . Rather than lowering taxes, Walz increased them. Then, the surplus was mostly spent boosting government programs, such as providing free college for middle-income families, free school lunches for all students, and a paid family leave program .

Socially, Walz’s views should be alarming, even for a liberal. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many states still placed restrictions on abortions. Walz signed into law a bill in Minnesota that allows abortion until birth, one of the most extreme laws in the country.

In April 2023, Walz also signed the “trans refuge” bill making Minnesota a sanctuary for minors who seek sex changes , giving legal protection to minors who travel to Minnesota for gender-transition care. The law lets Minnesota courts use the issue of transgender medical care to help assess child custody and gives courts temporary emergency jurisdiction if a child comes to Minnesota wanting transgender-related care from a state where these procedures are banned.

Walz also signed laws that expanded voter eligibility to Minnesotans on probation for felony convictions and made illegal immigrants eligible for driver’s licenses.

In a social media post on Tuesday , House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), who represents a suburban Twin Cities district, called Walz an “empty suit.”

“He embodies the same disastrous economic, open-borders, and soft-on-crime policies Harris has inflicted on our country the last four years,” Emmer wrote.

Walz soft on George Floyd riots, hard during COVID-19

Walz was at the helm during two disasters that affected Minnesotans. His leadership, or lack thereof, gives insight into what he might be like as vice president when our nation faces difficult times.

During the coronavirus, Walz shut down the state like many other Democratic governors and ruled by executive fiat. Following the pandemic, Minnesota became a leader in COVID-19 fraud.

At least 70 people, including 18 who have pleaded guilty and five who have been convicted, are thought to have exploited federally funded nutrition programs, including the Minnesota-based nonprofit organization Feeding Our Future, to obtain more than $250 million .

“Defendants falsified documents, they lied, and they fraudulently claimed to be feeding millions of meals to children in Minnesota during COVID,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said at a press conference in June after the first trial in the case concluded. “This conduct was not just criminal. It was depraved and brazen.”

After the death of George Floyd in 2020, Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Twin Cities, became the flash point for riots, vandalism, and arson, in part fueled by the organization Black Lives Matter. I watched on the news as the cities I loved as a child nearly burned to the ground, never to be the same.

More than 1,500 buildings were destroyed, costing taxpayers $500 million to repair or rebuild. Law enforcement was unable to quell the violent and destructive protests. Walz didn’t deploy the National Guard for several days.

“It was obvious to me that he froze under pressure, under a calamity, as people's properties were being burned down,” Minnesota state Sen. Warren Limmer, a Republican, told the New York Times about Walz’s leadership capabilities. Then-President Donald Trump applauded Walz’s response to the riots, but it seems more likely that he wasn’t paying attention to the important details of timing than that he was genuinely pleased.

Walz overreacted to the pandemic with more authoritarian gestures, but when it came to quelling Black Lives Matter protests in the Twin Cities, Walz failed to respond in a timely manner and with the authority vested in him as governor. This is common for progressive politicians, who lack a firm ideological foundation to respond to events as they unfold.

Now that Walz is running for vice president, there have been questions about whether he served in a combat zone and scrutiny of his past claims about his record. Walz served with the Army National Guard for 24 years and retired in 2005, just before his unit was deployed to Iraq, to run for Congress.

At a campaign stop in Michigan on Wednesday, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump's running mate, accused Walz of abandoning his duties. “When the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” Vance said. “I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably and I’m very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Progressive policies hurt Minnesotans

Walz’s policies didn’t improve the lives of Minnesotans. It’s one of the top 10 states people moved away from in 2023. It’s been excruciating to watch the place where I grew up become so liberal that it’s unrecognizable. Other than an occasional visit, I have no desire to live there in the long term.

Like most far-left ideas, they look good on paper, but they wind up costing Minnesotans. Minnesota’s rapid decline from a purple state with centrist Democrats at the helm to a far-left progressive state with a governor who embraces socialist policies while masquerading as just a regular nice guy cannot be overstated.

“Tim Walz has such a bad record as Minnesota’s governor that I was astonished when he landed on Vice President Kamala Harris ’s vice-presidential shortlist,” Minnesota lawyer Scott Johnson wrote in the Wall Street Journal the day after the announcement. “As Minnesota’s Center of the American Experiment has documented , under Mr. Walz Minnesota has become a high-crime state. Student achievement has tumbled as spending on schools has skyrocketed. Per capita gross domestic product has fallen below the national average. Minnesotans have joined residents of New York, California and Illinois in fleeing their home state.”

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A look at Walz’s record as governor shows exactly why Harris might have chosen him: Because of his “aww shucks” demeanor, perhaps she thought his decisions in a blue state wouldn’t be subject to scrutiny. Yet his record clearly aligns with her own progressive ideas. Like Walz, Harris favors raising taxes and creating excessive government programs and believes state and federal governments should be the nation’s greatest resource.

The Harris-Walz ticket shows the Democratic Party embraces extraordinarily progressive ideas and policies that would cost taxpayers. The country cannot afford what Minnesota has endured.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist for USA Today.