'Walz faces political jeopardy over Minnesota fraud controversy'

 Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) is facing a challenging political future as he finds himself at the epicenter of a growing fraud scandal in his home state. 

The controversy, which focuses on hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly stolen from a federally funded nutrition program, has led to more than 50 convictions. The New York Times gave the story national attention last week, highlighting statements from federal prosecutors that as much as $1 billion in taxpayer money may have been stolen in separate plots.

It has even Walz’s longtime allies wondering if the governor should walk away from a reelection bid for a third term as governor. 

“The governor, I think, has done a very respectable job, a good job, in Minnesota for the years that he’s been here. But he clearly is vulnerable and in my view, he is riskier than any Democratic candidate that might run,” said Ember Reichgott Junge, a former Minnesota Democratic state senator and a political analyst in the state.

Reichgott Junge said fraud “happened on his watch” and that Walz “can’t erase that.” While she said the governor is taking steps to rectify it, including audits, those investigations will “probably uncover more.”

“So this issue is going to continue to surface through the next year,” Reichgott Junge added, saying it’s a “significant issue” in the state and noting it is “in the headlines virtually every other day.”

A second longtime ally of Walz’s in the state told The Hill that the controversy is “obviously not great” for the governor and calls into question not only his gubernatorial reelection for a third term but a possible presidential bid. 

“The challenges are that Minnesota has a very low tolerance for fraud, waste and abuse. It’s a very low threshold, and that’s one of the reasons the state has worked so well for so long,” the ally said. “It’s clearly a real vulnerability.”

The ally noted polling that shows Walz’s disapproval ratings rising in the state. A Minnesota Star Tribune poll out this summer showed that Walz had a 49 percent disapproval rating and that it had climbed almost 7 points since a similar poll was taken in 2022. 

“Even suburban dads would bring it up to me over the summer,” the ally said.

It was only 16 months ago when Walz, 61, vaulted onto the national political scene as then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.

Walz first emerged as a dark horse contender for the No. 2 slot and ended up winning the position over other prospects such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D). He saw his profile jump in the weeks ahead of Aug. 6, 2024, when Harris made the call — and particularly after a viral cable news interview in which he derided some Republicans as “weird.”

Walz’s star faded somewhat after Harris’s loss to President Trump. The Harris-Walz ticket only won the state of Minnesota by 4 percentage points, and it lost Shapiro’s swing state of Pennsylvania, in addition to Wisconsin and Michigan.

“I think we all had high hopes for him, but I don’t think he was a very effective running mate at the end of the day,” one top Democratic strategist said. “It never seemed like he was comfortable in the role beyond his rollout.” 

The Minnesota governor at the beginning of this year was still seen as a potential future Democratic presidential contender, however, and he and Trump have regularly sparred with one another.

Trump over the last week has brought up the Somali controversy and signaled an interest in increasing his deportation efforts in the state by focusing on Somali immigrants.

The president has also come under criticism himself over his remarks about Somali immigrants.

During a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump said he did not want immigrants from Somalia to stay in the U.S.

“We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said in comments that also targeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the United States from Somalia. 

A day later, the president said that “Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country” and said that Minnesota had become a “hellhole” as a result. 

Walz, seeking to go on offense, fired back at Trump, saying Thursday that it was “unprecedented” for a United States president to make that kind of attack. “We’ve got little children going to school today who their president called them garbage.” 

Reached by The Hill on Friday, the governor’s office pointed to the work Walz’s team is doing to combat fraud. 

That work includes ordering a third party audit of Medicaid billing at the Department of Human Services, creating a centralized fraud investigations unit at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as well as funding additional auditors and internal control specialists.

The governor’s office is also securing new statutorily mandated requirements for high-risk Medicaid programs including expanded background checks on providers and enhanced financial transparency disclosures and more frequent site visits. 

A source close to Walz’s reelection campaign added that “Minnesotans understand that Trump is using this issue to unfairly attack Gov. Walz.”

“Trump has overplayed his hand and Minnesotans aren’t going to go for it,” the source said. 

Allies say Trump’s comments will ultimately help Walz, but Republicans are looking to go on the attack. More than a dozen GOP candidates have entered the gubernatorial race to oppose him. 

“Our election will be decided by the purple Minnesotans, if you will, and everyone is paying attention to this,” said Annette Meeks, a longtime Republican activist. “Everyone is paying attention to this.”

“To use one of my favorite Bush words, he’s bigly damaged,” Meeks said, referring to former President George W. Bush. 

Still, she added, “I don’t think it’s a fatal blow.”  

Democratic strategist Eddie Vale said it’s also too soon to tell what impact the scandal has on Walz. 

“I think it’s very much an open question of if the laws of political gravity return or have been permanently altered by Trump,” Vale said. “In the past it certainly would be something they need to deal with but as Trump is tearing down parts of the White House funded with corporate bribes and backing truckloads of crypto into his family’s accounts it’s going to be much harder to make things like this stick.” 

A KTSP/Survey USA poll out in September showed that those who participated were evenly split on Walz: 47 percent approved of his performance as governor, and 47 percent disapproved. Six percent said they had no opinion. 

Reichgott Junge said Walz’s problem is that many Minnesota voters will likely see the controversy over the fraud as landing on his desk.

“The buck stops with the governor, I’m sorry it just does,” Reichgott Junge said, adding that while people don’t blame him directly for the fraud, running for a third term is risky. 

“The governorship is important in Minnesota,” Reichgott Junge said. “It’s our only stopgap really between the Trump administration and a divided legislature. So if we lose the governorship then we lose a lot. 

“And who knows what could happen if we lost that governorship."

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5635849-walz-political-future-fraud-scandal/