Yesterday, failed Vice Presidential candidate and Minnesota weirdo Tim Walz announced he's going on a town hall tour of GOP districts.
While it may seem like a political move in anticipation of his 2028 run, there's probably more to it than that
Tim Walz is headed back out on the road – this time, for a tour of House districts represented by Republicans who have stopped holding in-person town halls amid the raucous receptions some of their colleagues have gotten across the country.The Minnesota governor and 2024 vice presidential candidate will start on Friday in Iowa, in the district represented by Rep. Zach Nunn, then head across the border to Nebraska, for the district represented by Rep. Don Bacon – both of whom won tight races for reelection last year. Walz’s team is already planning stops in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio for the coming weeks, with more stops expected to be added.
Given his national profile after his time on the Democratic ticket last year, Walz said he felt obligated to step up.
'There was just a primal scream of folks recognizing what’s going on with the Trump administration, their authoritarian tendencies, and what they viewed was a lack of a proper response from their representatives,' he told CNN on Wednesday. 'It was about these Republican representatives recognizing this stuff’s really unpopular, so they’re going to quit the town halls. These folks need to be heard. They need to be heard, and to be candid with you, Democratic leadership needs to hear them.'
Republicans -- to their detriment -- have dialed back town halls in their districts, citing disruption by paid Left-wing activists. I think that's a mistake, but that's a topic for another column.
Instead, I will remind you that I said -- back in August -- that Tim Walz was a bad pick for Kamala Harris' ticket. In hindsight, there was nothing that would've saved her sinking campaign, not even picking Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. And it's only gotten worse for Walz since last summer.
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Normally, picking a governor of a state boosts a candidate's standing in that state. In Minnesota, however, adding Walz to her ticket actually hurt Kamala Harris, where she went from +27 with female voters to +18. This was, undoubtedly, a reaction to Walz's draconian COVID-related school lockdowns and mask mandates that hurt Minnesota students academically and socially.
This is on top of his failures during and after the George Floyd/BLM riots, his demented views on socialism (it's not 'neighborly', Timmy), and his general weirdness that media tried to pass off as 'Midwest dad' (hahahahahaha!).
After the election, Tim Walz -- like his fellow Democrats -- doubled down on embracing the ideology, rhetoric, and policies that led him to lose the election. It's all empty, performative virtue-signaling for the benefit of his fellow Democrats.
What Walz hopes to achieve at these town halls in red states is nothing more than media clout. He may have his eye on the White House in 2028, but he -- like Pete Buttigieg -- won't make it past the primaries. Heck, they might not even make it to the primaries.
The fact Walz is leaving the state indicates, to me, he's not optimistic he'll get another term in St. Paul because it's not like he's solved all of Minnesota's problems. Instead, he's heading out on the road to secure his future.
Walz is weird, but he's a politician and his favorability in Minnesota is above water. Democrats nationwide are polling at 21-33% favorability, and it'll take more than a guy like Walz to turn that around. He's up for reelection next year and at least one Minnesota Senator -- Tina Smith -- has bowed out of the 2026 campaign.
We may be looking at 12 years of Republican governance at the White House level and possibly in Congress.
Walz has to know this.
Instead, he wants to show MSNBC (or CNN or ABC News, whichever network doesn't go bankrupt first) that he can draw Democratic eyeballs. There's no better way to do this than holding grandstanding town halls in Republican districts (probably replete with so-called 'Republican voters' who are really paid Democrat shills).
And Walz knows this, too.
