Gov. Tim Walz abandons re-election bid as fraud scrutiny intensifies

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced he’s dropping his bid for a third term as he responds to a fraud crisis in state government, a stunning turn for his once-ascendant political career.

Walz’s exit from the 2026 governor’s race came less than four months after he announced he would seek re-election, but also as he became the face of one of the largest social services fraud scandals in the state’s history. His decision set off a scramble to find a candidate to replace him at the top of the ticket, in a Minnesota election year that’s shaping up as a political free-for-all.

Republicans had called for Walz to resign or drop his re-election bid in response to the sprawling crisis, and a growing number of Democrats had privately expressed concerns about Walz’s viability for a third term. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, long the Democratic Party’s top performer in statewide elections, was said to be giving strong consideration to running for governor.

Walz’s decision is a political victory for President Donald Trump, who led a Republican campaign to cast Walz as inept and corrupt.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration launched more than a half dozen investigations into fraud. State Republicans worked closely with a conservative influencer to produce a video accusing Somali Minnesotans of running fraudulent day care centers. The video went viral and put a hot spotlight on Walz’s stewardship of state money.

Democrats, some of whom were already uncomfortable with Walz’s bid for an unprecedented third term, became louder in their criticism.

Walz made his announcement during a news conference at the State Capitol on Jan. 5. He read from prepared remarks and then abruptly ended the news conference after eight minutes, without taking questions from the media.

The DFL governor was on top of the political world after he signed a liberal policy bonanza into law in 2023 and rose to the national stage the following year as his party’s vice presidential nominee. But 2025 brought immense challenges for Walz as he recovered from his national defeat, mourned the loss of his close colleague, former House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who was killed in a political assassination, and found himself under the harsh national spotlight for the state’s fraud crisis.

Walz said he wants to spend the rest of his time in office tackling the issue of fraud instead of “defending my own political interest.”

Federal prosecutors have documented hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fraud in state autism services, housing and meals programs, among others. The total scope of the theft could reach into the billions when all is uncovered, according to federal prosecutors.

“Minnesota faces enormous challenges this year and I refuse to spend a single minute doing anything other than rising to meet this moment,” he said.

Party insiders widely believe Klobuchar, Secretary of State Steve Simon or Attorney General Keith Ellison could jump into the governor’s race on the DFL side.

A person close to Simon’s campaign says he will not run for governor if Klobuchar enters the race.

Nearly a dozen Democrats who spoke to the Minnesota Star Tribune in recent weeks said they thought Walz should not seek re-election, including several who compared his run for a third term to President Joe Biden’s doomed 2024 re-election campaign.

A group of DFL state senators had been requesting a meeting with Walz in the past couple of weeks to voice their concerns and start a private discussion about the path forward, according to multiple people familiar with the effort.

Minnesota House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson said Monday that Walz made a “really difficult and remarkable decision” in choosing to drop his bid for re-election. Other DFLers echoed that praise in statements that were strikingly similar to how Democrats responded when Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 race.

“I think that this is another proof point of where the governor is putting the well-being of Minnesota ahead of politics,” Stephenson said. He added that the “monster challenge” of addressing fraud in state programs is “deserving of the full-time attention of the chief executive of the state of Minnesota.”

Walz’s decision reverberated through the field of about a dozen GOP candidates who are running for governor. State House Speaker Lisa Demuth said she wasn’t shocked by the move considering the pressure he was facing.

She said any Democrat who runs for governor will have to contend with headwinds Walz may have faced.

“The Democrats have never separated themselves from Walz whatsoever,” she said, “so really, whichever Democrat ends up running for governor is going to be running for Governor Walz’s third term.”

Demuth said the possible entry of Klobuchar into the race doesn’t change her campaign calculus. As a federal elected official, Klobuchar has not had responsibility over the administration of state programs.

In addition to Demuth, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, businessman Kendall Qualls, Minneapolis attorney Chris Madel, Rep. Kristin Robbins and 2022 nominee Scott Jensen are also running for governor on the GOP side.

Walz has been defiant against Trump amid the crackdown on fraud, arguing the president is turning it into a political issue. The governor has taken recent steps to address the crisis, including hiring a new point man to head up the state’s response.

On Jan. 3, the governor also criticized Trump for spreading a baseless conspiracy theory suggesting Walz was involved in the killing of Hortman and her husband, Mark, in June.

Before he announced his run for re-election, Walz had wavered over whether to seek another term in the office. He privately questioned if he wanted to serve for 12 consecutive years, nearly a dozen people in the party told the Star Tribune. Walz also had been knocked off course by the June 14 assassination of Hortman, his close friend and governing partner in the Minnesota House.