As we’ve been reporting today, Tim Walz is running for an unprecedented third term as Governor of Minnesota. Should he?
Voters seem to be saying, “no.” As it happened, John’s American Experiment organization published some polling results today on this very question,
The Thinking Minnesota Poll also asked a traditional “right direction/wrong track” question and for the fourth consecutive poll, a plurality of Minnesotans think the state is off on the wrong track (49 percent) instead of the right direction (43 percent). At the beginning of Tim Walz’s first term in March of 2019, 57 percent of Minnesotans believed the state was moving in the right direction.
What is on the minds of voters these days? From American Experiment,
Worse yet for Walz, a whopping 50 percent of respondents say fraud will be a major factor in their vote for governor next year.
To be fair to Walz, those results may include some pro-fraud voters, as theft of taxpayer money represents a multi-billion dollar industry in the state.
The anti-fraud sentiment is reflected in the Minneapolis Star Tribune‘s headline on the Walz announcement,
Walz has historic opportunity, faces challenges in bid for third term as governor:
Walz has campaign cash and a long record on which to run. Opponents are intent on holding him accountable for fraud in state programs.
Curiously, the Star Tribune also reported,
Walz didn’t do a public event on Tuesday and wasn’t immediately available for an interview on his reelection campaign.
The “announcement” cossists of a 2-minute video posted to social media this morning. The first 15 seconds of the video depicts Walz in cosplay as a male of the human species, with his vintage International Harvester truck as a prop. The truck reappears at the :20, :47, 1:00, 1:29, marks and for the final 20 seconds of the video.
Walz famously owns no real estate or any kind of financial asset (stocks, bonds, etc.). His International Scout may be the only thing he owns that can be classifiable as an asset.
As for the “fraud” mentioned in the Star Tribune headline, in the article, it only appears in a “Republicans pounce” context, not as a real issue that real voters care about.
This morning, I quoted from The Hill newspaper, who framed the context in this manner,
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the 2026 governors race as “likely Democratic.”
For the media and national political observers, that will likely remain the take up until election night. Democrats in Minnesota have won the past four contests for governor, and 2026 will be a midterm election during the term of a Republican President. Given those facts, any incumbent Democratic governor in America would be a shoe-in for re-election.
As a reminder though, here’s a headline from The Hill from mid-October 2024,
Harris leading Trump by 5 points among likely voters: Poll
Voters nationwide took the measure of Tim Walz, as the Democrat’s Vice Presidential nominee last year, and found him wanting. Although Harris-Walz took the state’s electoral votes last year, state Democrats lost control of the Minnesota House of Representatives for the first time since 2016.
“International Scout: anything less, is just a car!”
