Hope Walz’s TikTok’s catching the attention of the right

Hope Walz, the daughter of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is the latest child of a prominent politician to build a social media following by venting their frustrations about politics.

Last week she criticized President Donald Trump’s move to send the National Guard into Washington, D.C., on TikTok. The move was “scaredy cat behavior,” she said.

The post on TikTok, which generated more than 40,000 views by Friday afternoon, is the most recent in a string of sometimes expletive-laced criticisms from Walz, whose father was the 2024 Democratic candidate for vice president. She has posted frequently about Republicans on the platform since that campaign.

Children of politicians, once mostly relegated to photo ops and rarely put in front of the microphone, are thrusting themselves into the spotlight, often using their social media platforms to talk about politics separately from their parents.

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. similarly uses X as a platform to bash the left and boost Republican causes. Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of former vice president and Walz running mate Kamala Harris, has also used social media to talk about politics and express how she feels navigating the Trump administration.

Claudia Conway, daughter of Trump’s former Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway, has regularly spoken out against the Trump administration on social media despite her mother’s ties.

Hope Walz’s content has also caught the attention of the right, including Fox News, which has written multiple stories about her TikTok posts.

Hope Walz, a 24-year-old social worker who lives in Montana, was frequently seen on the campaign trail last fall with her father as he was running for vice president, raising her profile nationally.

“This country does not deserve Kamala Harris,” Hope Walz said in a TikTok post that went viral after Harris lost the November election. “That woman should go live her best life wherever she wants, doing whatever she wants because we don’t deserve her.”

Hope Walz’s social media accounts were private before the election and she was urged by staffers to avoid posting until after the campaign was over, Hope Walz told the online publication The 19th.

But she said she noticed people were as upset as she was by the results of the 2024 election, which prompted her to become more active.

Hope Walz has commented on everything from the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York to encouraging people to “keep our foot on the gas” in pressuring the Trump administration to release the files on deceased convicted sex offender and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Tim Walz is still a national political figure in the Democratic Party, meaning Hope Walz will continue to get pushback on her posts from the right.

At times, she’s openly sparred with Fox News, including in a TikTok video she posted following her comments about the National Guard in Washington.