NICOLLET COUNTY, Minn. \u2014 The political divide in the congressional district Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz once represented is now so stark that it\u2019s hard to imagine one person representing the whole area. In this expanse of southern Minnesota, a few small, sleepy cities stand their ground in a sea of rural red that stretches from the South Dakota border to the bluffs above the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n
Democrats have expressed hope that putting Walz, a Midwesterner who grew up working summers on a Nebraska farm, on their ticket will help them win over rural voters. But a close look at Walz\u2019s former district \u2014 a prime example of how America\u2019s huge urban-rural cultural divide shapes the nation\u2019s politics \u2014 shows just how difficult that task will be.<\/p>\n
In the 18 years since Walz made the life-changing career change from high school teacher to politician, Minnesota has grown more liberal as a state, but the district that gave him his start has lost almost all of the blue precincts that once dotted its farmlands. The cities in the 1st Congressional District have grown, but in the expansive rural heartland (pigs outnumber residents of the district seven times over, according to 2022 census data), populations have decreased and the people remaining have grown more conservative.<\/p>\n
The major upset that Walz delivered in 2006 in his first run here \u2014 he beat an incumbent Republican by six points, becoming only the second Democrat in a century to flip the seat \u2014 seems even unlikelier now.<\/p>\n
A Republican took back the district in 2018, the same year Walz was elected Minnesota\u2019s governor. Walz lost here in both his statewide campaigns, and Republicans are expected to win here again in November. In the district\u2019s cities, many voters \u2014 often Walz superfans \u2014 want liberal representation, but rural voters are trending ever more Republican, and they are angrier at the left than they were when Walz was their congressman.<\/p>\n
Tales of Walz\u2019s days as a teacher and high school football coach trip off the tongues of almost everyone in Mankato, the college town where he and his family lived, but mentions of Walz were widely met with a roll of the eyes this month at the Nicollet County Fair. Mankatoans feel energy and pride for their governor, but at the fair just 20 minutes outside town, some people were more excited by the prospect that if Walz becomes vice president, he might finally leave the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not a Walz fan,\u201d declared John Luepke, a farmer and former Nicollet County commissioner. While watching 4-H children show their chickens \u2014 \u201cthe equivalent of Little League in Minnesota,\u201d an onlooker explained \u2014 he quickly deployed one of the Minnesota GOP\u2019s favorite Walz attack lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a $17 billion surplus and he just \u2026 spent it. It\u2019s not like I got any rebates,\u201d Luepke said.<\/p>\n
As part of last year\u2019s budgeting process, Walz agreed to spend almost all of the projected $17.5 billion surplus over the next two years, directing it toward K-12 education, infrastructure projects, and tax cuts and credits for working families. GOP lawmakers said the size of the surplus was evidence of overtaxation and accused Democrats of squandering the money and setting the state up for deficits.<\/p>\n
In rural Minnesota, even some voters who liked Walz\u2019s work in Congress complain that as governor he was far too liberal. Some conceded, though, that he knows more about agriculture than most vice-presidential or presidential nominees.<\/p>\n
In the livestock enclosure, farmers grumbled over new agricultural controls \u2014 designed to curb water pollution \u2014 that have affected farmers under Walz\u2019s governorship, including permits for feedlots and increased regulation of the spread of manure and fertilizer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNinety dollars to vaccinate a farm cat!\u201d Luepke exclaimed. Last year he had been able to buy the shots over the counter, he said, but this year he would have to take the cat to the veterinarian for a \u201cwellness check\u201d first, bumping up the price. \u201cThey\u2019re farm cats. There are predators and roads \u2014 they only have about a 50 percent chance of making it to a year or two old,\u201d he said. He said he wouldn\u2019t have the same problem in South Dakota, where he bought the cat from a farm store. \u201cThis state wouldn\u2019t even let them be sold in stores like that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem, according to the farmers \u2014 amid low crop prices and waterlogged fields \u2014 is high taxes and high government spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some of the highest income taxes in the country. South Dakota doesn\u2019t have any revenue tax,\u201d Luepke continued, to nods from the farmers around him. \u201cIowa has very little. Wisconsin isn\u2019t too bad either.\u201d Minnesota has the highest top corporate tax rate in the country and the sixth-highest top bracket for income tax, but the state has lower taxes on poor families than many other states do.<\/p>\n
Voters here are quick to relay the attacks local Republicans use against Walz \u2014 particularly, in a community of family farms that prides itself on pinching pennies, a school food-voucher program fraud scandal that they say falls on Walz\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n
In one of the largest pandemic-related fraud cases in the country, 70 people have been charged in an alleged scheme to fraudulently claim more than $250 million in federal funds. Walz had no direct role, but critics have said that, as governor, he should have prevented it.<\/p>\n
Many voters in the rural areas of Walz\u2019s old district no longer credit him for his moderate voting record in Congress and his time on the House Agriculture Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re portraying him to the whole United States as a moderate,\u201d said Rose Oachs, a 76-year-old retired public health nurse, who was visiting the pig enclosure. \u201cAnd as far as living in Minnesota all my life, I don\u2019t feel he\u2019s a moderate. He\u2019s far left.\u201d<\/p>\n
But southern Minnesota has changed over the past two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district was divided when he won in 2006,\u201d said Nick Frentz, a state senator from North Mankato who belongs to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota\u2019s state-level affiliate of the national Democratic Party. \u201cBut by the time he\u2019s running for the final of his six terms \u2026 it\u2019s red red, but he wins. Barely.\u201d By 2016, Walz \u2014 who in 2008 won by nearly 30 percentage points \u2014 hung on by less than one.<\/p>\n
Election maps show the rural parts of Walz\u2019s district growing increasingly Republican during his six terms in Congress. The cities and area colleges and universities have grown, helping Democrats. (Rochester, the district\u2019s biggest city, grew by more than 17,000 people over Walz\u2019s 12 years in Washington, according to census data.) But rural areas have struggled economically and lost population, Frentz said.<\/p>\n
For Walz\u2019s supporters, his ability to flip and hold on to a red district that was growing more conservative is evidence that he can appeal to a large swath of the electorate, including voters who disagree with him on some issues.<\/p>\n
People Walz regularly interacted with as a congressman said he held on to his district by reaching across the aisle, maintaining a moderate voting record, staying involved with agriculture and taking the time to speak to constituents who disagreed with his politics. Being endorsed by the National Rifle Association \u2014 which later rebuked him after he changed his position on gun rights \u2014 and serving in the National Guard also helped, Frentz said.<\/p>\n
Since being elected governor in 2018, Walz has signed a laundry list of Democratic priorities approved by the narrowly divided state legislature, including legal protections for abortion rights, free school meals, a child tax credit, legal marijuana and protections for gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n
That record excited liberal Democrats but drew opposition from many voters in his old congressional district.<\/p>\n
Walz didn\u2019t abandon his rural roots, Frentz argued. \u201cThose in the 1st District who had Tim as a congressman and were willing to vote for a Democrat, even with conservative leanings, sometimes they\u2019re disappointed at the stuff that passes at state level that he signs,\u201d said the legislator, who has known Walz for 20 years. \u201cBut he doesn\u2019t just represent the \u2026 people in the district anymore, and part of the state is a good deal more liberal than down here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even in this now GOP-held district \u2014 the Republican incumbent, Brad Finstad, won by 12 points last cycle \u2014 tens of thousands of people still vote for Democrats. Although Finstad benefits from how red the rural areas have become, he has to win enough votes in those places to offset the growth of the district\u2019s blue cities.<\/p>\n
In Mankato, many people are enjoying watching their high school coach rise to the national stage. On a chalkboard at a local bar that lets people buy each other drinks for the next time they come in, someone has bought Walz a beer, marked with a heart \u201cfor democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walz\u2019s long tenure coaching and teaching has made him a firm fixture of the community. Every person in Mankato who spoke to The Post either knew Walz personally or knew someone who did.<\/p>\n
Nick Maxwell, a personal injury lawyer, moved to Mankato shortly after Walz was first elected to Congress. \u201cThere was a lot of excitement at that time and it just carried over \u2026 which was interesting because as soon as he stepped out to become the governor, we lost that seat,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what you see at a macro level: He\u2019s just got something extra that resonates with people and a way of speaking that people can grab on to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walz\u2019s \u201cauthenticity\u201d as a politician who behaves like a \u201cnormal person\u201d has allowed him to heal rifts between communities that have grown apart, Angie and Dan Bastian, longtime friends and neighbors of the Walz family, said in an interview. Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats were right to bet that Walz could bridge divides between rural and nonrural communities nationwide, too, they argued, and offered an example.<\/p>\n
Last year, they said, Walz unexpectedly showed up at the wake for Dan Bastian\u2019s father. Bastian\u2019s rural family whispered and stared. Some were not happy. But Walz talked to everyone anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to listen, he wants to incorporate. He\u2019s firm on his ideas and his policy, but he is very open to bringing people together,\u201d Angie said. \u201cHe talked to them. He built a bridge. That\u2019s his magic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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