If Gov. Tim Walz has achieved anything after 18 years in public office, it has been to convince many of his fellow Minnesotans that he is decidedly not weird.
On Tuesday, Annakeiko Reichel-Frink, a teacher from Mankato, Minn., called Mr. Walz “a very normal human being.” Maria Bevacqua, a college professor from the same small city, where Mr. Walz once taught at the high school, described him as “somebody you would bump into at the grocery store.” Adam Lueth, a college student who is leaning toward the Republican ticket, said that Mr. Walz, a Democrat, comes across as “a genuine guy.”
Mr. Walz was thrust into the national spotlight on Tuesday when Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, announced that he would be her running mate. The second-term governor seemed to rocket to the top of the list after he used one word quite effectively against Donald Trump, the Republican candidate: He was simply being “weird.”
Mr. Walz has succeeded in projecting an avuncular, affable, relentlessly normcore image to Minnesotans. But on Tuesday, in interviews across the state, voters also seemed less than convinced that Governor Walz had succeeded in rising above partisanship, or in uniting the state as “One Minnesota,” as his 2018 campaign slogan put it.
That perceived lack of unity may partially be the result of Mr. Walz’s political formula, which has tended to serve up dollops of Minnesota nice over an ambitious progressive policy agenda, one that has its roots in Minnesota politicians like Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale.
But it may also be the case that a nice-guy candidate — even one whom voters could imagine having a beer with — has limited power to charm nowadays, when hot tempers and invective seem to be the rule.
Last year, Mr. Walz, with the support of a Democratic state legislature, led Minnesota in a decidedly leftward direction, supporting initiatives that enshrined the right to abortion in state law, provided driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants and legalized recreational marijuana. In March 2023, he signed an executive order that tries to protect members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community seeking medical treatment for gender transitions. At one point, he described it as effort to make Minnesota an “island of decency.”
To Tom Thompson, a retired feed mill manager, some of these initiatives were no-gos. Mr. Thompson, 69, was unloading his bike on Tuesday in the parking lot of Mankato West High School, where Mr. Walz taught social studies and coached football before winning his first congressional race in 2006.
“He leans pretty far left and that just doesn’t align with my values. My moral compass goes the other way,” Mr. Thompson said. “I think abortion is wrong. I think pushing the L.G. — I can’t even get all the letters right — agenda is a disservice to the children, especially where they’re allowing young children, teens, early teens to reassign their gender through surgery and things.”
Mr. Thompson said he voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, but was later turned off by his divisiveness and dishonesty. He said he wrote in a candidate in 2020 and planned to do so again in November.
Those who believe they can trust Mr. Walz sometimes note that he is not a career politician; he made his first congressional run in his early 40s. Before that, he won fans with his teaching skills in Mankato, a city of roughly 44,500 people about 90 minutes south of Minneapolis.
Dinah Langsjoen, 37, lives in North Mankato and works as an administrative assistant. But she grew up poor in LeHillier, a township just west of Mankato, she said, and sometimes felt that people like her were not welcome at school.
“I remember,” she said, “that Tim Walz was one of the — and now I’m going to cry — one of the guys who really just looked beyond that and taught you that no matter where you’re from, and taught you that you can do more with your life.”
Ms. Bevacqua, 55, said she appreciated that Mr. Walz has been a regular fixture at Mankato’s annual gay pride parade. “He’s open to conversations and gathering perspectives,” she said. “He was a teacher, so he couldn’t afford to be closed minded and still be successful in that work.”
Mr. Lueth, the college student in Bloomington, Minn., who was leaning toward Mr. Trump, said on Tuesday that with Mr. Walz on the ticket, he would give the Democrats a second look. “He doesn’t give, like, this crooked politician vibe,” Mr. Lueth said. He called Mr. Walz “a good guy, which you don’t see a lot, quite frankly, especially on the national stage.”
But Mr. Walz has a lot to overcome. Mr. Lueth, 19, said he thought the governor had failed Minnesota during two great crises: the Covid-19 pandemic that killed many residents of the state’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, and the riots after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer, which critics say Mr. Walz was slow to stop.
“Those two things just make it really difficult for me to really support him,” Mr. Lueth said.
Dan Radant, 49, the owner of a trucking company, knows where he stands on the question of Mr. Walz and his record.
Mr. Radant has displayed a sign in his yard in Inver Grove Heights, a suburb of St. Paul. It features a picture of Mr. Walz wearing a dunce hat, and says: “MY GOVERNOR IS AN IDIOT.”
Mr. Radant is proud to have grown up in Inver Grove Heights. Today, he said, he has eight grandchildren in the local school system. But he sees a region in decline, and he said that Mr. Walz and other liberals deserve much of the blame — for high taxes, uncontrolled immigration, the “woke” ideology festering in schools, and the laws keeping abortion legal in the state.
“I think it’s good that Harris picked him, because it’ll show the country how radical he is,” Mr. Radant said. “It’s going to help Trump for sure.”
Eric Anderson, 57, a former mayor of Mankato and a Trump supporter, said he is fond of Mr. Walz personally. But he also was disappointed that he seemed to squander chances to work with Republicans in the state legislature.
“Tim Walz is far more liberal than people have assumed,” Mr. Anderson said, adding: “I really don’t like how polarized we are as people. And I don’t think Governor Walz has helped that in Minnesota at all.”
Harold Rayford could not see it more differently. Mr. Rayford, 69, a partially retired nurse anesthetist, is Black. He said he and his wife, who is white, had felt an uptick in racism in the United States, to the point where they were thinking about moving to another country.
On Tuesday, he said Ms. Harris’s selection of Mr. Walz had renewed his faith in politics and his country. Mr. Rayford said that Mr. Walz seemed to have an inclination to help those in need, and those who were not like him. He mentioned Mr. Walz’s support for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, as well as his support for a universal free lunch program for Minnesota’s public school students.
“Maybe there’s something to be said about being an older white male who’s seen it all and done it all,” he said, “and doesn’t have a whole lot to lose.”
The post What Minnesota Voters Think of Tim Walz appeared first on New York Times.
