By Brad Brooks
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, describing himself as a political “lightning rod,” said on Wednesday he would never run for elective office again.
Walz, 61, who lost his bid for U.S. vice president as the 2024 running mate of presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket defeated by Republican Donald Trump, is due to end his second term as governor in early 2027.
The former teacher and coach announced on January 5 that he would not seek a third term as governor. Instead, Walz said he wanted to focus on a fraud scandal plaguing the state’s welfare system that grew into a political crisis after Trump seized on the issue in attacking the governor.
At the time, Walz left open the possibility that he might seek other office. But in an interview on Wednesday with the cable news channel MS Now, Walz ruled out any future political ambitions.
“I have no political consideration, will never run for an elected office again,” he said. “Never again.”
“I recognize that I’m a lightning rod,” Walz said of his political enemies. “I know they hate me personally, and they take it out on my constituents.”
Before first winning election as Minnesota’s 41st governor in 2018, Walz, a U.S. Army veteran, had served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Trump administration has recently singled out Walz and Minnesota, including its large population of Somali Americans and Somali immigrants, over allegations of fraud, dating back to 2020, by some nonprofit groups that administer the state’s childcare and other social services programs with support from federal funding.
Earlier this month, Walz referred to the fraud scandal as a crisis, and said he wanted to “let others worry about the election while I focus on the work”. He said the state welcomed federal support to fight fraud, but said Trump and other Republicans “want to make our state a colder, meaner place” and called them “opportunists who are willing to hurt our people to score a few cheap points”.
Deportation raids in Minnesota began in early December, when the Trump administration launched “Operation Metro Surge”, deploying ICE and Border Patrol agents to the Minneapolis–St. Paul area. Trump in November had described Minnesota as a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” under Walz.
This month, in two separate incidents, federal agents shot and killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The shootings drew criticism of the Trump administration from Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democrats.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in MinneapolisWriting and additional reporting by Steve Gorman and Nilutpal TimsinaEditing by Peter Graff)
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