Tim Walz is going away, but the Democratic Party's Tim Walz crisis isn't.
The Minnesota governor gave up his quest for a third term Monday: Staying out of jail will be challenging enough for him over the next few months, never mind prolonging his stay in office.
Federal prosecutors estimate the Somali daycare scam and other frauds perpetrated under his watch cost taxpayers up to $9 billion.
Money like that goes a long way in politics.
Over the years, Walz and his party have received plenty of campaign cash from the Somali community, a loyal -- and influential -- bloc in Minnesota Democratic politics.
The fraud was no well-kept secret; an independent journalist, Nick Shirley, easily exposed it.
But whistleblowers who'd tried to raise the alarm earlier were ignored -- it wasn't convenient for Walz and friends to notice what a key constituency was up to.
Just 14 months ago, Walz was Kamala Harris' running mate; he could have been a heartbeat away from the White House.
He was meant to be the answer to the national Democratic Party's branding problems -- its reputation for cultural weirdness and its difficulty courting white, male and rural voters.
Walz was supposed to be a reassuringly "normal" Democrat, but it turns out what passes for normal in the party today is deep incompetence, corruption and worse.
Tim Walz is indeed a symbol of his party, in all the worst ways.
Minnesota was the upper Midwest's only holdout in the Trump wave of 2024, the last blue redoubt in a region painted red by Trump's populist rebranding of the Republican Party.
Does Walz's disgrace put the state in play for 2028?
That would be catastrophic for the Democrats' electoral map, throwing another 10 electoral votes to the GOP.
The last time the state voted for a Republican president was more than 50 years ago, when it backed Richard Nixon in 1972.
It's been 20 years since a Republican even won a statewide election in Minnesota: Tim Pawlenty, reelected governor in 2006, was the last to do so.
But Walz and his scandals may have given Republicans two fresh chances this year and next.
Even with Walz out of the way, his scandals will taint whoever gets the Democratic nomination for governor.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar wants the nod -- but if she gets it and then wins in November, her vacated Senate seat will present another opportunity for the GOP in a special election next year.
Minnesota's other senator, Tina Smith, has already opted not to run for reelection this cycle, and her seat's up in November.
Walz's Democrats -- technically the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota -- face a tough series of tests at the ballot box in the next few months, with the jaw-dropping scale of the Somali scandal threatening to overshadow everything.
And, ironically, even Somali American voters in Minnesota have started souring on the Democrats:
The Harris-Walz ticket actually lost ground with voters of Somali descent in 2024.
"In the Somali American hub of Cedar-Riverside, support for Harris dropped 14 percentage points" compared to 2020, according to a post-election report in the Minnesota Star Tribune, which noted, "Votes for Harris also dropped in precincts in the Seward neighborhood and along West Lake Street by 9 and 12 percentage points ..."
Biden-Harris policies toward Israel and Gaza were one consideration; another was that Somali Muslims aren't entirely comfortable with the progressive social stances of the modern Democratic Party.
The Harris-Walz ticket still wound up garnering the support of about 80% of the Somali community, however.
If the Democrats' grip on Minnesota is slipping, it'll be more traditional constituencies who bring about the break -- perhaps those who question how well the "farmer" and "labor" legs of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party have been served by a Democratic Party defined nowadays by manias for mass immigration and extreme identity politics.
Tim Walz was never a middle American Democrat; he was just a bland-looking white guy whose politics were as far-out as those of anyone else in his party.
Another Walz won't win Democrats white, male or rural voters, even if he's scandal-free.
The Democrats' problem isn't with the way their candidates look or sound -- it's what they believe and do.
And there won't be a Democrat who can match the appeal of Republican populism until there's a Democrat who dares take the populist side on immigration and cultural norms.
That kind of Democrat, if he or she exists at all today, would be the opposite of Tim Walz.
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