Every Democrat seems to have their own diagnosis for why the party lost power in Washington last year, but only one of them was on the vice-presidential ticket. Minnesota governor Tim Walz catapulted himself over other Democrats to be Vice-President Kamala Harris’s running mate by famously calling Republicans, especially J.D. Vance, weird. Today, he has a label for his own party: “timid.”
For the past several weeks, Walz has been barnstorming Republican congressional districts to press the case for his party, which has hit rock-bottom approval with its own voters for not fighting harder against Donald Trump. I spoke with him a few hours before a town-hall meeting outside Houston with Beto O’Rourke that drew thousands, where Walz argued that Democrats had let Republicans define DEI and immigration, issues they hammered the party on in 2024. Looking at crowd size alone, Walz seems to be on to something: Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders have drawn even larger crowds of tens of thousands to hear their prescription for “fighting oligarchy.” In our interview, Walz faulted his party for not delivering major change for voters during the Trump era, even saying Harris wasn’t allowed to be bold enough after replacing Joe Biden as the nominee. Democrats, he said, could have the same sort of success he has had in Minnesota during two terms, but the party is afraid to be bold.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the meaning of these crowds we’re seeing for you, AOC, and Bernie?
It’s good, and it’s good for my soul, too, because after these first couple months I was deeply concerned, and remain concerned, that folks had become disengaged and with the number of people who did not vote. They’re like, “What difference does it make?” But it doesn’t appear that’s happening. I think the Democratic Party would be wise to listen to what folks are saying, to understand why they’re willing to wait in line, and to take some lessons from that. How do we not be a party that seems very misunderstood by a lot of the public?
Does that mean the people coming to these events were engaged and voted for the Democratic ticket in 2024?
Yeah, I think a lot of them were. I felt a primal scream of “Just do something!” People want to be engaged and make a difference, and they don’t know what that looks like. So I think this is a way to gather in community.
Are any of these people ones who didn’t come out to vote or who voted for Trump?
Yes. A woman wore a Marianne Williamson shirt the other day to my event in Wisconsin, and she said, “I want to give Democrats a chance.” She was there because she does not agree with Donald Trump, but she wasn’t sure about the Democrats. Look, I think it’s mostly folks who supported the vice-president and myself, but that’s not totally it. And then there’s a lot of folks who are showing up who maybe voted, maybe hadn’t, but the implications of these policies are raining down on them.
There was a transgender airwoman in Omaha — highly specialized, highly trained — who wasn’t able to deploy. I have no idea what her politics were beforehand, but she was there to ask a very specific question: “What happens to me now?” So it’s that. “What happens to my Parkinson’s disease?” “What happens to my son who’s got a million-dollar insurance bill and we’re using Medicaid?” Those are the people showing up.
What is the elevator pitch for the Democratic Party?
When I was growing up, there was little question the Democratic Party was there for labor unions, was there for workers, and the Republican Party was there for the wealthy — and that wasn’t necessarily a pejorative, it was just the way it was. Apparently, now, whether it’s our low approval ratings or the millions who stayed home, people aren’t so certain that’s true. I think our policies are popular: paid family medical leave, protection of reproductive rights, investments in infrastructure. But that’s not getting to them.
I keep saying this, and the teacher in me knows this so well: You teach a lesson, and a big chunk of kids don’t get it or don’t understand the concept. It’s not because they’re dumb; you have to teach it differently. Not everybody learns by verbal. Not everyone learns by seeing it. Some of them have to touch. Some of them have to do it themselves. Some of them have to do trial and error.
We as the Democrats think if there’s a golden message and we get a charismatic leader and we just send it out, everybody’s going to gravitate to us. A whole large number do, and I’ve been making the case that in these special elections, these off-year elections, we do really well. Those are people who watch the news every night. But during a presidential year, there are folks who are busy, they don’t live politics all the time, and we apparently don’t reach them in any meaningful way. This has happened for three cycles. So I’m listening to folks, saying, “What can we do to resonate with you better?”
But even in cycles where Democrats were ultimately successful, it has felt like the party’s self-critique centered on better messaging. To me, this cycle’s results suggest there needs to be bigger change than just reaching voters where they are.
Critics keep saying, “Well, you’ve got to message better to them.” Well, I’m not going to demonize immigrants, and I’m not going to advocate for terrorists [after the interview, a spokesman said Walz was referring to defending Vladimir Putin and foreign dictators], and I’m not going to do a white-power thing. I’m not going to get rid of saying “Our diversity is our strength.”
Look, I don’t think we’re very entertaining, either, like Bill Clinton playing his saxophone.
We need to make sure there’s something in this party for you. The folks who are MAGA got a common uniform, a common language, common things they talk about. Democrats, don’t know if we have that. But look, our policies poll favorably, so if that’s the case yet people are voting against them, then we’re not reaching them, we’re not doing it right, the messenger’s wrong. We need to look at it all.
Even the most prominent Democrats are looking to keep some kind of distance from the party. AOC is aligned with Democratic Socialists. Bernie Sanders is an independent. And you identify as a member of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, a DFL-er, correct?
I’m a DFL-er, yeah.
Why not identify as a Democrat? I mean, you were on the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket.
Yeah, no, you’re on to it. Look, I’m telling you I don’t have this worked out in my mind yet, but you hit on something I’ve been talking about. If it were up to me, since I’m a DFL-er, I think we message our party as Democratic-farmer-labor, Democratic-worker-labor, and get more to the core of who we are. Because sometimes your brand gets damaged, you know?
Should Chuck Schumer stay on as leader?
Well, the Senate’s got to make its own decision on that.
What do you say to the people who ask why they should listen to you or to other prominent Democratic officials at this point?
Well, I’m going to say this: I take my lumps, and I’m a team player, and as I say, I am proud to have been with the vice-president. But my work has been done in Minnesota, where we won. We also had a Democratic trifecta where we passed incredibly important legislation with a very slim majority — things that are very popular. So I have made the case that we are too timid. If you think we win back the presidency in ’28 and you think we’re going to pass some subsidies for the ACA exchange, you’re sadly mistaken. The people who stand up at my town hall and say, “My God, I can’t do this anymore. My entire life is dependent on what happens with each presidential election” — it shouldn’t be that way. Health care should transcend presidential elections. So I’ve been making the case — and we did it in Minnesota, and I think you’re seeing it in some other states — to be bold. I think that’s the AOC-Bernie message, too.
It doesn’t feel like the party was very bold when you and Harris got on the ticket in the latter half of the 2024 campaign.
I think we’re cautious by nature. And look, I said this and I told the vice-president, I said I know my strengths and weaknesses. I said about 90 percent of the time, I can be really good, but about 10 percent of the time, I can be a train wreck because I’m speaking from the heart, like a teacher sitting in a teachers lounge or a laborer sitting at the break table.
I thought they would choose the district attorney and the teacher over the hedge-fund manager and the billionaire.
Why didn’t they?
I don’t — look, the folks who voted for Trump are going to vote for Trump. My biggest concern are the folks who stayed home. And that goes back to this idea of what the Democratic Party is, who’s standing with us, and “Who do I identify more with?” Maybe we’re not aspirational.
I heard this from someone who said, “With Democratic go-to messages, basically to Black men, these Democratic politicians led with ‘We restored felon voting rights,’ and the Black men said, ‘But we’re not felons, we’re MBAs looking for capital.’” The restoration of felon voting rights is important — I did that in Minnesota — but it’s not aspirational. With Donald Trump, everything’s gold plated and he’s hanging around with these stars, and I don’t know if we do enough of that.
You’re saying you didn’t have an opportunity to be bold during the campaign?
Well, I won’t critique the campaign. They need to do what they need to do, but I don’t think Vice-President Harris got to be bold. We were dealing with a short runway. That was that one election. I think it would be foolish for us to take a ton of lessons from that because this has been going on for several cycles, certainly since 2016, that we are really struggling to broaden our appeal and energize folks.
What does being bolder look like?
We’re asking them to come to rallies not so we can get capital and get reelected but so we can burn it as fast as we can to improve their lives. I heard Ezra Klein say, “Yeah, Biden was incredibly bold,” and I talked about this: “More money ever invested in broadband ever,” and we’ve connected like 12 houses. We didn’t get it done. I think this goes back to the bureaucracy. This goes back to us status quo–ing. Look, I’m not going to do the Republican message that government’s horrible, it should get out of our way, it should be involved in nothing. But I am going to say if you’re going to believe in collective will, you need to get it done for people. We need to tell ’em we’re going to burn this political capital and we’re going to get these things done whether that is health care, whether that is paid family medical leave, whether that is moving toward climate policies that make sense rather than just talking about it. I think a lot of folks like what the Democrats are saying, but they don’t believe we can get it done.
There’s no shortage of scandal right now with the Trump administration, and I don’t see any actual damaging consequences, like with the Signal fiasco. How do you fight, given that?
I agree. Look, there’s nobody who has served in the military who’s buying this bullshit between attack plans and war plans. They were telegraphing where our troops would be before they would be there. My question is will the press give them a pass? Trump saying, “I don’t know what was really going on”? What the hell?
Karoline Leavitt is yelling at the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. It feels like the press isn’t sleeping on this scandal.
Yeah. No, you’re right. I hope they hold them accountable. We just need a few courageous Republicans.
And some Democrats, though, right?
I agree. I saw Tammy Duckworth give the most full-throated talk. I saw Marty Heinrich talk about this. I saw Andy Kim. And look, I’m around some fairly conservative folks saying, “I can’t defend this.” We need to tap into that. At a minimum, I would’ve thought they’d have fired Mike Waltz, which would’ve been good for me because I’m tired of people getting confused.
This is the time for us to find our spine, push ’em — this should’ve been and would’ve been a slam dunk. It was a screwup. Somebody should’ve taken accountability — the president — and they should’ve let these people go. And I hope that’s how it ends.
