Walz Made The Right Call For His Party, And For Minnesota

By J. Patrick Coolican, Minnesota Reformer

January 7, 2026

The moment Gov. Tim Walz was caught off guard was little remarked upon at the time, but in retrospect, it illustrates how he and his administration were sleeping through an enveloping crisis.

In the late 2024 budget forecast, he said disability and autism services were driving state government spending beyond expectations. When he was asked about potential fraud in the autism program — about which we’d reported an FBI investigation six months prior — he seemed unfamiliar. I traded texts with an incredulous reporter who was there and wound up publishing a column called, “Minnesota: an easy mark.”

More recently, Walz faced the full force of the right-wing propaganda machine in the past two months. It was a frightening sight to behold, and a healthier democracy would never be host to such a parasitical malignancy.

Although restoring American democratic habits of mind to eviscerate that propaganda machine should be on our lengthy, long-term to-do list, the lesson here for me is that the most underrated tool in the political toolbox is … governing.

Deadly dull, I know, but the word governor even has the word “govern” in it: competently administering programs to help people who need it; ensuring Minnesota’s children are learning literacy and numeracy; and managing the state’s vast infrastructure assets. That’s the job.

Former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, another one-time rising star in Minnesota politics, recently faced the same sort of governing reckoning as Walz, when Mayor Kaohly Her pulled off an upset November victory promising to make stuff work again. May Democratic elected officials everywhere take notice.

We live in perilous times, no question, but Minnesotans are right to expect a minimum level of competency in these matters of public administration. It’s especially important for the party of government, i.e., the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, to pay attention to details, like whether a 3,000% increase in spending on the autism program is reasonable, especially when some of the providers had ties to Feeding Our Future.

Tim Walz is at heart a decent man, and he doesn’t deserve what’s been thrown at him in recent weeks — especially a despicable allegation leveled by the president of the United States and the odious propagandist Nick Shirley that Walz was involved in the assassination of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman.

He made some mistakes, but he’s not evil, unlike some of the loudest and most influential voices in American politics today, whose greed and lust for power are boundless.

Walz’s first term was marked by almost constant crisis, none of it his doing. He was a mostly steady hand, even as Republicans came to despise him during the pandemic and the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd.

His second term comprised major legislative accomplishments — for which the credit mostly belongs to Hortman and the late Sen. Kari Dziedzic — as well as his (again, in retrospect) disastrous candidacy for vice president. All the while, thieves were stealing the people’s money with gusto.

Walz has served the community of Mankato, the people of Minnesota and his country.

And now he has saved us from what would have been a deeply divisive campaign, and which would have put the state of Minnesota under federal siege.

Unlike former President Joe Biden, who doomed his party and the country with his insistence on running for a second term, Walz is stepping aside before any more damage is done to his state and the DFL. He says he’ll focus all his energies on cleaning up the mess.

He deserves our thanks for that service and for making this decision.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..