Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) abandoned his ludicrous quest for a third term on Jan. 5. He has angrily refused to resign from office. Whenever he departs, whether upon his resignation some time this year or the expiration of his term early next year, we can say this much with certainty: Like former President Joe Biden, he has become a dispensable inconvenience to Democrats, in this case, Minnesota Democrats facing the 2026 elections at all levels of state government, and, like Biden, he will leave office in disgrace.
To say that Walz is the worst governor in Minnesota history does not come close to doing justice to his case. Like the children of Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, our governors have mostly been above average, with a dip here and there. Walz has plumbed the depths of political turpitude while refusing to take responsibility for the catastrophe over which he at least bears supervisory responsibility. He is at best guilty of an old-fashioned kind of political corruption that has been magnified to the nth degree by an absurdly creative welfare state. We have never seen anything like it.
The disgrace derives from the massive public programs fraud committed during his tenure by an almost exclusively Somali cast of perpetrators. The fraud is old news here, but it became a public relations crisis for Democrats in two stages. First, Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo caught the attention of President Donald Trump in the Nov. 19, 2025, City Journal column titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer.” Then, at year-end, YouTuber Nick Shirley released a wildly viral video seeming to document fraud in Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program.
Neither of these stories was new. Minnesota public programs fraud became manifest in the so-called Feeding Our Future case that resulted in federal charges against 47 defendants in September 2022. The number has since grown to 78 defendants and resulted in seven convictions at two trials and 50 guilty pleas along the way. The case involves fraud amounting to some $300 million.
The case opened a window into related frauds in Minnesota’s 14 “waivered” Medicaid programs. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson has estimated that the fraud on those programs since 2018 may run to $9 billion. Thompson characterized the fraud as “industrial-scale.”
All this fraud, some alleged, some proved, some yet to be charged, has occurred under the unwatchful gaze, at best, of Walz. From the first, Walz has deflected blame onto others. Among them was Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann, who issued a public statement denouncing Walz’s mendacity at the time of the September 2022 indictments.
A week before then-Vice President Kamala Harris selected Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election, I wrote in the Washington Free Beacon that Walz would never live down the frauds committed on the state agencies within his jurisdiction. It took a little while for the frauds to overtake him, but that’s where we are today.
Most recently, Walz has attributed blame for the frauds this way: “For the last several years, an organized group of criminals have sought to take advantage of our state’s generosity. And even as we make progress in the fight against the fraudsters, we now see an organized group of political actors seeking to take advantage of the crisis.”
As a group, the fraudsters show no particular organization. Rather, they saw an opportunity and acted to exploit it. And the unnamed “political actors,” well, they must be Republicans of the sort who have pointed at Walz. He thinks they should be ashamed.
It is not only the massive public programs fraud for which the buck stops with Walz, despite his incessant efforts to pass it. On March 25, 2020, Walz declared an emergency under Minnesota law and ruled by decree for 15 months. Having destroyed jobs and impeded life routines, including family get-togethers and church attendance, Walz was relieved of the power to rule by decree effective July 1, 2021, when the state legislature finally extracted it from his cold, jazz hands.
During the state of emergency, protests broke out in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 following the death of George Floyd. That Thursday, rioters burned Minneapolis’s Third Precinct police station to the ground. Walz failed to deploy the National Guard until the weekend. Riots, arson, and looting throughout the Twin Cities caused about $500 million in damage.
In November 2022, Walz was elected to a second term, and Democrats won majorities in both chambers of the legislature. In the preceding two years, with Republicans holding a narrow majority in the state Senate, Minnesota had accumulated an $18 billion budget surplus. With the Democrats in full control, Walz and his allies in the legislature spent the $18 billion surplus on infrastructure, education and other programs that will burden the state for years. They have also raised taxes.
THE SPECTACULAR FAILURE OF THE TIM WALZ DEMOCRAT
Walz also proudly led the cheers to support the passage of laws establishing Minnesota as a mecca for abortion and a “trans refuge.” The legislation prohibits enforcing out-of-state subpoenas, arrest warrants and extradition requests for citizens from other states who seek treatment that is legal in Minnesota. It also bars compliance with court orders issued in other states to remove children from their parents’ custody for authorizing hormone treatment or surgery to alter sex characteristics. Having formerly represented a moderate rural district, Walz went all-in with the “let’s go crazy” Democrats of Minnesota.
Once upon a time, Walz was capable of impersonating a relatively normal human being. That time has long since passed. Now it’s time for him to go.
Scott W. Johnson is a retired Minneapolis attorney and contributor to the site Power Line.