Tim Walz Looks Into the Void

Yahoo

23-04-2025

Photographs by Brian Kaiser
Tim Walz and I were sitting down for breakfast earlier this month at a Courtyard by Marriott in Independence, Ohio, just outside Cleveland. Walz, who was Kamala Harris's running mate last year, is still the governor of a state that happens not to be Ohio—or West Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, or Texas, all of which he had visited recently.
This was a bit curious, especially because it is not a presidential-election year. His three-day tour of northeastern Ohio included labor roundtables, impromptu roadside stops, and two town-hall meetings. What was he up to exactly?
Like Democrats in general, the two-term Minnesota governor is still trying to process the insanity of last summer and fall, the earthquake of Election Night 2024, and the horrors that have spiraled out since then. Also, like Democrats in general, he isn't sure how best to counter the daily onslaught of the second Donald Trump administration. Walz seems to be figuring things out as he goes, but at the very least feels itchy to help jump-start the second Donald Trump resistance.
Walz is a big breakfast guy. It gets him jump-started. He ordered his standard morning bowl of oatmeal with a sliced banana. Walz is also a big metaphor guy. For instance, he refers to his delirious vice-presidential campaign as his '90-day Eras Tour.' It is a good line, but an imperfect metaphor. Taylor Swift's Era's Tour reinforced her rolling dominance; Walz's ended abruptly—and badly.
'I own it,' Walz told me, referring to the inevitable critiques that have followed his and Harris's defeat. He swigged from a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, the first of four he consumes on an average day.
[Mark Leibovich: Tim Walz is too good at this]
I had a vague memory of Walz's affinity for the phosphorescent soda. It was part of the populist persona that he debuted on the national stage after Joe Biden's candidacy imploded in July, and that helped endear Walz to Harris. Walz, as her running mate, was that plainspoken lover of hunting, coacher of football, changer of air filters, wearer of camo. He was briefly the prototype hero for all of those 'White Dudes for Kamala' (they had T-shirts!).
I also had a vague memory of Walz briefly becoming a Democratic sensation last summer, even though that now feels like last century. But despite his star turn in July and August—the viral cable interviews, the killer convention speech—Walz virtually disappeared after Labor Day, except for a not-great debate performance against J. D. Vance.
To a certain degree, Walz's recent travels represent a return to the national political scene. I was curious to see how he would be received. It's not as if anyone senses a great public clamor for Tim Walz less than six months since Election Night. He seems a less than likely—and less than ideal—candidate to lead Democrats through their desperate straits. He often acknowledges this himself, as he did at a town hall in Youngstown.
'Probably the last guy' who should be telling the party what to do, he said, 'is the guy who got his ass kicked in the last election.'
Audiences laugh at this, always. Political self-depreciation is a winner, especially in this period of abundant gallows humor.
But here is the notable part: A lot of people are showing up to see Tim Walz. The crowd at Youngstown's DeYor Performing Arts Center was loud and boisterous—about 2,800 people, including a packed overflow room. They lined up on a snowy Monday, the same night as the NCAA men's basketball title game. Walz drew another 2,000 people (with overflow room) to a large high-school auditorium in Lorain, Ohio, the next night.
'Something is definitely happening,' Walz told me a few hours before the Youngstown town hall, during a stop for lunch across the border in Wheeling, West Virginia. By 'something,' he meant a great and building frustration among people who are horrified not just by what Trump is doing but also by the lack of response from the putative leaders of the Democratic Party.
No one at these events seemed to view Walz per se as the Democrats' savior, though I sensed nothing but goodwill for him. More than anything, he was a vehicle for them, someone to give voice to their anger. He had heard a 'primal scream from America,' Walz said in Youngstown, the line that drew probably the loudest cheers of the night. 'When people on the streets were saying, 'My God, elected Democrats, do something!''
[Read: Can you really fight populism with populism?]
There have been stirrings of late. 'Cory Booker stood there for 25 hours,' Walz said in Youngstown, referring to the senator from New Jersey's record-long floor speech the previous week. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have embarked on a nationwide 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour that is drawing crowds sometimes in the tens of thousands to places such as Missoula, Montana, and Nampa, Idaho. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts attracted a few thousand people at a recent rally in Austin and about 1,500 in Nashville. And Governor Gavin Newsom of California started a podcast last month; two of his first guests were staunch MAGA luminaries, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. Another was Walz.
'I'm kind of wondering where I fall on the list of guests,' Walz told Newsom after he was introduced. Walz praised his fellow governor for 'doing something to try and fill a void that's out there, and hopefully trying to use it as a platform to articulate our values to a broader audience.' He added, 'We've not figured this out yet.'
Walz talks a lot about this void. About a month ago, he set out to be part of the Democratic effort to fill it. He said he was appalled by the unwillingness of many Republican House members to hold town-hall meetings after agitated constituents started showing up to them. In March, Walz became one of a handful of Democrats who decided to host their own events in districts where Republicans had been refusing to. This would also be a chance for Walz to figure out a few things of his own, a version of the 'where I fall on the list of guests' question. He wanted to see if there was any audience for someone like himself.
Walz's town halls are cathartic and fascinating spectacles—equal parts group therapy, strategy brainstorm, and gripe session. Walz is constantly spitting out fun facts and skips from topic to topic. He sometimes appears to be processing aloud as he speaks. One hobbyhorse is how Democrats need to communicate their message in simpler, real-life language. Walz affects a serious, highfalutin voice. 'You hear Democrats say this, 'We really need to address food insecurity,'' he said in Youngstown. 'What we really need to do is make sure people aren't hungry. And just talk about that.' (Oligarch is another bad term, Walz says, as opposed to greedy billionaires.)
Walz is a good storyteller, and nails his applause lines. But he couches the current state of things as scary and getting more so. 'The road to totalitarianism is people telling other people they're overreacting,' Walz said in Youngstown. He throws around phrases such as 'constitutional crisis' and 'the world melting down around us.' He mentions that the White House is not far from jailing its political enemies.
[Adam Serwer: The constitutional crisis is here]
Walz offers the power of citizen engagement as the Democrats' ultimate weapon. 'One man should not be able to destroy the global economy,' he said in the crescendo of his speech in Youngstown. He said that Congress isn't doing its job to check Trump, and now Trump is defying the courts. 'So, I got to tell you,' he said, 'this is what you call a constitutional crisis.' The crowd went nuts—presumably because they agree, not because they like constitutional crises.
'But there is one final fail-safe. That's the people,' Walz said. 'The people,' he said again, over the building applause. 'The people are going to solve this.'
About that 'running for something' question: Everything about Walz's three days in Ohio resembled a well-advanced campaign trip. He had an entourage of about a dozen people, including security, traveling staff, local officials, and press; he does not have a political PAC, according to his staff, and he worked with local Democratic organizations to set up the events. He held big ones, smaller forums and meetings, media scrums, and meandering retail stops.
'We're going to eat fish sandwiches!' Walz announced upon his arrival at Coleman's Fish Market, in downtown Wheeling. He greeted employees, visited a few tables, and posed for photos. Someone recommended that he try a cup of the alligator soup. It is one of the fish shop's most popular items, even though alligators are not common in West Virginia—nor, for that matter, are they fish. Walz ordered some and immediately raved, in the way that politicians always rave about restaurant cuisine when cameras are present. 'It's like minestrone,' he said. 'You gotta try it.' (I did, and found it bland and watery.)
I sat at a wooden table across from Walz, who was joined by former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. Walz started telling me about how a day earlier, while stopping at a convenience store, he'd met a woman who raises emus. I heard him tell this story several more times over the next day and a half. These goofy and serendipitous encounters are part of what Walz loves about campaigning, or whatever it is that he's doing. He projects an obvious sense of missing being out on the trail, as if maybe he has his own void to fill.
'So, are you going to run for president?' I asked Walz over breakfast the next morning at the Courtyard in Independence.
'No, no,' he said.
He told me he will decide in a few months whether to seek a third term as governor; he is up for reelection next year. He briefly thought about running for an open Minnesota Senate seat in 2026 but decided not to. I tried the 'running for president' question a few more times. He gave me more 'no's, but at a certain point they started coming with equivocations—or I heard them as such.
'So, you're not running for president?' I asked.
'Nope.'
'Ever? Possibly? Maybe? Rule it out? All that?'
'My line always is: Don't ever turn down a job you haven't been offered,' Walz said, cryptically.
Walz has obvious regrets and second-guesses about the last campaign. He agrees with those who wish that he and Harris had been less cautious. 'I'm a big believer in flooding the zone,' he told me. The candidates should have gone on Joe Rogan's podcast and talked with other Trump-friendly media outlets, he said. 'I'm like, fuck it,' Walz said. 'Just go.' If there is one lesson that Democrats can take from Trump, he said, it is to 'continually be present.'
As far as his own role, Walz clearly felt restrained and, to some degree, reduced to a one-dimensional prototype for those coveted 'White Dudes for Kamala' guys.
[Mark Leibovich: Trump says he is serious about staying in office past 2028]
He is careful not to criticize the campaign directly, but not subtle in parroting the critiques of others. Walz volunteered that Bill Clinton had called him in early October. 'He said, 'Don't allow them to make you a caricature.'' (The 'them' here refers to Walz's own campaign higher-ups, not the Trump-Vance campaign.) 'You are a consequential governor,' Clinton told him, according to Walz. 'And that's what you should be running on.'
I asked Walz if he'd ever pushed back against the campaign's decisions. He said that he offered suggestions, but did not want to create problems. Yet he wishes he could have done more interviews, showed a less canned version of himself, and been more freewheeling.
'Why didn't they have me do this shit, like we did yesterday?' Walz wondered aloud, a bit wistfully, referring to his encounter with the emu lady, which he'd just excitedly finished talking about (again). 'Solid, for 100 days, just that?'
Near the end of our breakfast, Walz veered into another campaign story. He was doing a photo line at an event in California, and who should come roaring through but Katy Perry. 'And for five minutes, she just chastised me about Diet Mountain Dew,' Walz said. 'I was like, 'You're scaring me, Katy.'' Perry's persistence didn't work—Walz still guzzles the stuff with gusto—but at least this was another cherished vignette from the campaign trail that he seems to crave more of.
After Walz finished his speech in Youngstown, he thanked everyone, waved, pointed, and lingered onstage. He had a big, almost euphoric smile on his face that went beyond the usual politician's perma-grin. It felt at odds with the darkness of the Democrats' predicament. He was relishing the moment.
So was the crowd. They lingered on their feet, cheering for the guy who got his ass kicked in the last election.
Article originally published at The Atlantic