The rapid rise and fall of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

For a fleeting moment, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was on top of the political world.

It was the summer of 2024, and Walz had become the the unlikely Democratic vice presidential nominee alongside Kamala Harris after signing a sweeping progressive agenda into law in Minnesota.

Then, his political career unraveled almost as quickly as it took off. Walz suffered a bruising national defeat, lost his close friend and colleague in a political assassination and found himself under white-hot scrutiny for a sprawling fraud crisis in the state’s welfare programs.

On Monday, Jan. 5, almost a year and a half after Harris asked him to be her running mate, Walz stood before a crowd of reporters at the Minnesota Capitol to announce he was dropping his bid for a third term. His wife, First Lady Gwen Walz, looked on as he read brief prepared remarks and then left abruptly without taking questions.

“I’m confident that I’ll find ways to contribute to the state that I love long after next January,” Walz said in his remarks. “I want Minnesotans to know how grateful I am for the opportunity to serve this state, for the privilege that I have been given to serve in this office.”

Walz’s exit from the governor’s race — and possibly from politics entirely — marked a stunning reversal of fortune and came as he faced unrelenting attacks from his greatest political foe, President Donald Trump, on the issue of fraud.

The governor’s move to end his re-election campaign amid scrutiny will almost certainly leave a mark on his legacy.

Minnesota is facing of one of the largest social services fraud scandals in its history. 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.

Critics of the Walz administration have long said the governor and his cabinet were too slow to act on stopping fraud. Some of Walz’s aides brushed off political concerns about fraud in recent years, saying the issue didn’t come up in polling.

“All along, he should have been holding his commissioners accountable,” said Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Cold Spring Republican who’s running for governor. “There is not a single person that I know that has been fired.”

The governor’s decision is likely to be seen as a political victory for Trump, who has led a Republican campaign to cast Walz as inept and corrupt.

Walz blasted Trump and his GOP allies on Monday for “seeking to take advantage of a crisis.”

Trump has called Walz a loser, “a very stupid, low IQ man,” and reposted lies that Walz was responsible for the assassination of Melissa and Mark Hortman. On Monday, Trump said on social media that Walz was corrupt, dishonest and has “destroyed the State of Minnesota.”

At times, Republicans as well as some Democrats questioned whether Walz’s focus was drifting too far toward national politics.

But after the assassination of the Hortmans in June, Walz was knocked off course. He began wavering over whether to seek a third term in the office before ultimately deciding to run for re-election.

Pat Garofalo, a former Republican state representative, said it became clear after Walz announced his re-election campaign that Minnesotans weren’t thrilled by the idea of a third-term governor “no matter who they are.” A poll conducted by the Minnesota Star Tribune in June found that about half of Minnesotans said Walz shouldn’t seek a third term.

“His number-one legislative ally was murdered in the summer,” Garofalo said. “And he had to make this aggressive decision, timeline decision, with the State Fair coming up at a time when he was still grieving. And like at a human level, it’s like none of us make our best decisions while we’re grieving.”

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

Jeff Blodgett, who has run DFL campaigns and worked in Minnesota politics for more than 30 years, said he didn’t see parallels with Biden, who he said had betrayed a pledge to be a one-term president. But he did praise Walz for making a comparatively quick decision.

Biden’s extended public clash with his own party in the face of sagging popularity soured the president’s standing with some Democrats. Walz’s decision to drop out was a “selfless act,” Blodgett said.

Democratic strategist Abou Amara said there was “really no end in sight” to the criticism Walz is facing for fraud. Federal prosecutors will almost certainly charge more fraudsters as more schemes are uncovered, which will keep the topic in the headlines.

“He stepped aside with enough time for the party to resolve what it’s going to do next. I think that’s a learning lesson from the 2024 presidential campaign,” Amara said.

It was that progressive blitz — and some well-timed television appearances that included jabbing at Republicans as “weird” — that raised Walz’s national profile.