A chameleon or pragmatist? Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s political evolution in the spotlight in VP race

Pacing in front of a crowd in a hotel ballroom in 2018, a bespectacled Tim Walz was clutching a wireless microphone and speed talking his way through his evolution on an issue that had taken on a new urgency among Democrats.

The rural, southern Minnesota congressman was a former National Guard member, gun owner, hunter and recipient of an A rating from the National Rifle Association. The NRA had also given him thousands of dollars in campaign donations. Now, he was giving it all back.

“Today I have a more important job; my job is to be dad to a 17-year-old daughter named Hope,” he told the crowd, not long after a shooter opened fire on students and staff at a high school in Parkland, Fla. “Hope woke up five weeks ago … and said, ‘Dad, you’re the only person I know who’s in elected office, you need to stop what’s happening.’”

Walz, who was courting Democratic activists in his first run for governor, would go on to win the office — twice — and sign bills into law that expanded background checks, created red flag protection orders and increased penalties on illegal gun purchases. The day he was announced as Kamala Harris’ vice presidential nominee, his change on the issue of guns invited immediate pushback from the NRA, which described Walz as a “political chameleon.”

“In Congress, Walz purported to be a friend of gun owners to receive their support in his rural Minnesota district,” said Randy Kozuch, chair of the NRA Political Victory Fund. “Once he had his eyes set on other offices, he sold out law-abiding Minnesotans and promoted a radical gun control agenda.”

Walz’s evolution on guns and other issues as governor has become a familiar frame of attack as he campaigns for the nation’s second-in-command. Opponents see an opportunist who licks his finger to see which way the political winds are blowing. Political allies and friends say he’s always been progressive on certain issues. On others, including guns, he’s evolved as the world and his constituency changed.

“To not evolve says something about you,” said Meredith Vadis, who worked on Walz’s first congressional campaign and spent more than four years in his office in Congress.

“He has always been a pragmatist. I think he comes with a very clear set of values, and those are the road map.”

Two decades ago, state DFL Chair Ken Martin was running John Kerry’s presidential campaign in Minnesota when he met Walz, a politically minded teacher and veteran from Mankato who hadn’t gotten involved in party politics but wanted to.

To Martin, who made Walz the chair of the campaign’s “Veterans for Kerry” effort, he hasn’t changed much in the intervening years. Walz still supports Second Amendment rights but also believes “we don’t need weapons of war on the street,” he said.

“Generally, Tim Walz of 2006 is the same Tim Walz of 2024,” Martin said. “His philosophy about being a good neighbor and making sure that no one is left behind, that we have a responsibility to our communities … none of that has changed.”

During a debate with his opponent in his first run for Congress, Walz made it clear he supported gay marriage. It was a risky position in rural southern Minnesota at a time when other Democrats were sidestepping the issue.

David Fitzsimmons, who has worked for the two Republicans who have represented Walz’s old district since he left Congress, thinks he was always more of a progressive Democrat, but he was able to portray himself as a moderate in Congress by highlighting certain aspects of his record.

One of 435 members in the U.S. House, Walz didn’t attract much scrutiny. His partisan views were on clearer display when he became governor, Fitzsimmons said.

“When he started off, he was a schoolteacher, he was a coach. My uncle was a schoolteacher and a coach in Owatonna. He knew him. I remembered him always saying, ‘Don’t agree with him, but he’s a good guy,’” Fitzsimmons said. “I think [now] he would probably be more pronounced in disagreeing with his politics.”

In Congress, Walz focused on local projects, veterans and agriculture issues. Walz would hold listening sessions across the district while he was working on the farm bill, said Vadis, his former staffer. Once he was ready to make a decision, she said he would personally call the stakeholders he spoke with and tell them he may be voting the other way but valued their discussion and guidance.

“That has been a key part of how ... your political views can evolve with good information,” she said. “I think people have always felt they could come back to him the next time and say, ‘You weren’t with me last time, but I want to present this new piece of information for you to consider,’ and he would really consider it.”

Former Minnesota U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, a blue dog Democrat who also represented a conservative district, said Walz was an “outstanding” lieutenant on the agriculture committee in Congress. But his positions changed after the 2022 election, Peterson said.

“There was a big difference from the way he was when was in Congress. I hear people complaining about it,” Peterson said. “The amount of spending that they did ... people thought they went a little overboard.”

After a dozen years in Congress and first term in the governor’s office working with a divided government, Walz was handily re-elected in 2022 to a second term alongside narrow DFL majorities in the Legislature. Former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that’s when things shifted.

“Once those lids were removed, he promoted and signed into law proposals even he describes as the most progressive in the country,” he said.

Wielding a massive surplus, Democrats passed the largest two-year budget in state history in 2023. They codified abortion rights into law, legalized marijuana, passed stricter gun laws and enacted new energy standards and a statewide paid leave program.

“As far as him trying to wear the baseball cap and being more relatable, when you start walking through the actual record, he’s very focused on partisan, extreme, far-left progressive policy that doesn’t represent all of Minnesota,” said House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring.

Still, Walz didn’t always agree with his Democratic colleagues. He issued his only veto as governor in 2023 when Democrats sent him a last-minute bill to raise pay for Uber and Lyft drivers. The companies were threatening to leave Minnesota if it passed, and Walz wanted to find a middle ground.

“I would still say he’s a moderate,” said Brian Melendez, the former chair of the DFL Party. “To me, when you say progressive and you’re talking about Democrats in Minnesota, you’re talking about the people who want to defund the police. He is not one of them.”

Melendez said Walz’s constituency went from a greater Minnesota district to a statewide constituency that includes urban areas. For DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman, everything looks extreme through the lens of the current Republican Party, which is dominated by Donald Trump.

“I don’t think his views have changed as much as the Republican Party has really now become in the business of almost exclusively demonizing the other,” she said.

State Sen. Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato, has known Walz and his family for 20 years. The fellow outdoorsmen would hunt and fish together. Back then, he and Walz weren’t discussing the types of progressive policies they would pass nearly two decades later.

But Frentz pushed back on Republicans’ attempts to label Walz as “radical.” It wasn’t radical to pass legislation providing free school meals to children, Frentz said, nor was it radical to pass a bill supported by insurance companies and some law enforcement agencies that allowed unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

On those issues, as well as guns, Frentz said Walz has always kept his constituents top of mind.

“That’s been his north star,” Frentz said. “His guiding light is, what is it that the people want?”