by Michelle Griffith for Minnesota Reformer
Jenn Magers, who lives about 20 miles northwest of Mankato in Nicollet, will cast her vote in November for the first time in decades because of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“The stuff that he’s done — I’m going ‘Yeah, I’ll vote for that,” Magers said, sitting outside of Coffee Hag in downtown Mankato, citing universal free school meals and legalization of cannabis. “I’m going to get off my butt and vote for the first time in 20 years.”
Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Walz as her running mate has electrified many Minnesotans, especially those who live in Mankato — the southern city where the two-term governor moved in 1996 to work as a geography teacher and defensive coach of the Mankato West High School football team.
Walz and his family moved to St. Paul after he was elected governor in 2018, but he still makes trips back to Mankato to connect with colleagues and those he represented in Congress for a dozen years. The city of 45,000 lies on the Minnesota River and is home to Minnesota State University campus, a remodeled downtown with numerous brown-bricked women’s clothing boutiques, an ice cream shop, tattoo parlor and crystal store.
The Reformer spoke to Walz’s fellow teachers and Mankato denizens, many of whom said the “joyful” personality that Harris is said to admire is well known to them too.
The governor hasn’t lived in Mankato for about six years, but Minnesotans who know Walz — and even those who have merely heard of him — are animated just knowing that someone with whom they have a connection, no matter how distant, could soon have proximity to the White House.
Walz is still a “favorite son,” said Bob Ihrig, Mankato West High School’s former social studies department chair who taught with Walz for 10 years. “He’s down-to-earth, and even when he was in Congress, he was just an average guy. There was never any kind of pretension about the position that he was in.”
The Harris campaign is hoping Walz’s regular guy appeal will extend beyond the borders of Mankato and Minnesota, picking up support of white, non-college voters who comprise much of the battleground states that are crucial to winning in November.
‘From one elected official to another’
Gwen and Tim Walz were hired together at Mankato West High School — Tim Walz in geography and Gwen Walz in English.
Ihrig interviewed Walz for the position, and he was drawn by Walz’s passion and his experience taking his students in Nebraska on an annual trip to China. Walz wanted to continue doing so in Mankato.
Walz as a teacher had a knack for connecting with his students, Ihrig said. He was able to relate to them as a relatively young teacher and well-known football coach.
“He was not the traditional lecturer — the sage on the stage — he was more the guide by your side,” Ihrig said.
In 1999, Walz agreed to be a faculty advisor for the school’s first gay-straight alliance.
“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” Walz told the Star Tribune.
Tania Lyon, a long-time neighbor of the Walzes and fellow Mankato teacher, said Walz was an energetic mentor who got to know students personally.
After he was elected to Congress in 2006, Walz continued to impact Lyon’s life. When her son won student council president when he was in 5th grade, Lyon said Walz sent her son a letter to congratulate him. It greeted him with “From one elected official to another.”
“It’s something that had an impact on (my son’s) life … That’s just who Tim is,” Lyon said.
Mankato’s troubled history
Just as Walz has left his imprint on Mankato, the city also seems to have influenced his understanding of American history.
Mankato is the site of the largest mass hanging in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged by order of President Abraham Lincoln in Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862. The men were hanged for their role in the U.S.-Dakota War, but historians today question whether their executions were legitimate.
In 2020, Walz apologized for the atrocity.
“On behalf of the people of Minnesota and as governor, I express my deepest condolences for what happened here, and our deepest apologies for what happened to the Dakota people,” Walz said in a statement.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, at the time said Minnesotans can learn from the government’s mistakes.
“While we can’t undo over 150 years of trauma inflicted on Native people at the hands of state government, we can work to do everything possible to ensure that Native people are seen, heard, and valued today,” Flanagan said.
If Walz is elected vice president, Flanagan would become the nation’s first Native American governor and the first woman governor in Minnesota history.
Mankato — a hilly, DFL island in a sea of red
The city is packed with green elm trees and winding roads that slope up and down steep hills and bluffs. Despite the small town charm, Mankato has enough big box stores like Walmart, Sam’s Club, Scheels and Target to make it the destination for Minnesotans of surrounding towns who shop for necessities here.
In 2020, Blue Earth County — which encompasses Mankato — voted for President Joe Biden by about 4 percentage points. Mankato is both a growing city and a blue island — thanks to Mankato State and other colleges — amid the deeply red, rural areas just outside the city, where flat farmland, vegetable fields and livestock farms stretch to the horizon.
You don’t need to travel far outside of Mankato to find Minnesotans who disapprove of Walz.
Rep. Brian Pfarr, R-Le Sueur, said he was surprised by Harris’ choice and questioned whether Walz would appeal to middle America.
“For years, I’ve called him a political chameleon. He turns the color of whoever he’s trying to stump or whoever he’s in front of at the time,” Pfarr said.
Pfarr served with Walz in the National Guard for years, and he deployed with him overseas — although Pfarr was in Germany and Walz was in Italy. After serving 24 years in the National Guard, Walz retired in 2005 with the rank of command sergeant major. He was the highest ranking enlisted man to ever serve in the U.S. Congress.
Pfarr said he respected Walz as a leader at the time, and the two got along, but their politics are vastly different now.
“He’s changed politically, which leads one to believe he’s more worried about being popular than principled. The decisions he makes now and the things that he has done are to appease his base, and the principles are left behind,” Pfarr said.
Pfarr referred to the one clear issue Walz has changed his mind about: Gun control. After a decade in Congress during which he was a strong ally of the NRA, Walz came out for an assault weapons ban after the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, and has signed some major gun bills as governor.
But Walz was an early supporter of gay marriage rights before it was popular, despite representing a conservative-leaning district. He voted for Obamacare, as well as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Obama’s signature first-term economic program. He also voted for a major 2009 climate bill that never became law.
As governor, Walz embraced the progressive bills passed by Democratic-Farmer-Labor’s legislative majorities.
Coming out swinging
Wesley Nelson, a barista at a coffee shop in downtown Mankato, is glad Walz has evolved on gun control. He said he “loves” Walz and supported his measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Nelson also appreciates that Walz “pays his dues” to Mankato and regularly returns to his home city.
“It’s nice to have a candidate who doesn’t forget their past,” said Nelson.
In the days since he joined Harris’ ticket, Walz has come out swinging with viral one-liners that garnered cheers at his first campaign rally with Harris in Pennsylvania.
“As President, (Donald Trump) froze in the face of the COVID crisis and drove our economy into the ground,” Walz said during the rally and later on Twitter. “Violent crime was up under President Trump — and that’s not even counting the crimes he committed.”
For Nicollet resident Magers, Walz’s feisty demeanor is what has persuaded her to commit to voting for the first time in decades. Prior to the announcement that Walz would be Harris’ vice presidential pick, Magers — who described herself as a moderate — said she wouldn’t have been able to pick out Walz’s picture. Magers passionately dislikes Trump, however, and she said Walz is the catalyst for doing something about it.
“Once I heard about Walz and the possibility of (Minnesota) going Republican, I was like ‘No, it can’t,’ so I’m actually going to get up and go vote,” she said.
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.
