ALBERT LEA, Minnesota — Tim Walz has been visiting Freeborn County for therefore lengthy it’s arduous to seek out anybody who doesn’t have a minimum of a passing familiarity with him. They’d seen him talking on the Elks Lodge or surveying twister harm or stopping by the gun membership when he was nonetheless in Congress. The yr after he was elected governor, he held the state’s fishing opener right here.
There was a time they preferred him, too. Even some conservatives did. They elected him six instances to Congress.
Perhaps, Janece Jeffrey, the president of the native lecturers’ union, informed me one latest Friday night time, Democrats have been onto one thing this election when Kamala Harris put Walz on the nationwide ticket — somebody who not solely knew his approach round farm nation, however who as soon as carried rural counties like Freeborn and will assist the social gathering make inroads in rural America.
However even when Walz is higher than another Democrats at speaking to rural voters, how many individuals in a county like this one are even listening? “I feel he can win again those which are possibly disillusioned with MAGA,” Jeffrey informed me. The issue, she added, is that in her county, “I don’t know what number of of them are left.”
Minnesota is just not a battleground in the identical approach Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania are. However I’d come to Albert Lea, a city of 18,000 named for a topographer who mapped the world within the nineteenth century, to see how Walz’s message was touchdown right here. If Walz actually can hook up with rural Individuals — and if Democrats have a gap there — they’d appear to have a head begin in a spot like this.
It isn’t essentially even about successful. Rural America remains to be Trump nation — possibly extra so than ever. 4 years in the past, exit polls confirmed him carrying about 57 p.c of the agricultural vote. This yr, polls nationally and in Minnesota put his assist in rural areas and small cities at round 60 p.c or above.
However one of many Harris marketing campaign’s objectives is to chop down Trump’s margins within the rural Midwest. They’re organizing in rural areas and have opened workplaces in far-flung outposts in swing states. And even when vice presidential candidates don’t have a wealthy historical past of constructing a lot of a distinction in presidential elections, it was one cause many Democrats right here cheered Harris’ collection of Walz, a Midwestern governor with a small-town pedigree.
The technique, mentioned John Anzalone, a veteran pollster and Harris adviser, is easy: “If you are able to do a pair factors higher, 5 factors higher, in these rural areas, and also you multiply that by all the agricultural areas in these states, it’s a giant deal.” Small margins tallied county-by-county can result in a state-wide win. And Walz, he mentioned, “is the primary nominee in trendy historical past, possibly since [Jimmy] Carter, who can discuss small city America, rural America.”
I met Jeffrey within the discipline home overlooking the soccer discipline the place Albert Lea’s highschool soccer crew, the Tigers, have been getting beat. Because the solar set over the far endzone, Jeffrey adjusted a window shade for a gaggle of principally older alumni watching from inside.
They weren’t precisely followers of the governor. There was Jim Munyer, the retired instructor I’d met at a Civil Struggle Roundtable the earlier night time, who referred to as Walz a “chameleon.” He suspected Walz was actually extra “California East, or California Midwest, I suppose.”
There was Lowell Peterson, who informed me over espresso earlier that day that when he noticed Walz’s camo-print cap, all he noticed was a need to “be a good friend to all people.” And, he mentioned, “I don’t like that crap, sucking as much as all people.”
And in a yellow security vest by the concession stand, there was Mike Murtaugh, a former mayor of Albert Lea who, like a lot of individuals right here voted for Barack Obama — and for Walz — earlier than voting twice for Trump.
Murtaugh, who was serving to with parking on the recreation, mentioned of Walz, “He performs himself as a former instructor from out-state Minnesota, however his base undoubtedly appears to be extra metro.” And within the stands not removed from him, the present mayor of Albert Lea, Wealthy Murray, informed me that whereas Harris and Walz gained’t have bother successful the state, “he’s not going to get the votes out right here.”
Not way back, individuals right here have been voting for Democrats. Earlier than flipping to Trump in 2016, Freeborn County, on Minnesota’s border with Iowa, had gone twice for Obama. Walz carried the county when he unseated a Republican in his Home race in 2006. And it’s solely about an hour from Mankato, the city the place Walz taught highschool and coached soccer within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. Greater than in most locations in America, individuals right here know Walz.
However once I requested Jeffrey about these rural, working-class voters she mentioned could be “disillusioned with MAGA,” she thought of her environment. Even speaking about politics might be troublesome right here, she mentioned.
“I’m a blue dot in a purple county.”
To some Minnesota Democrats, watching Walz marketing campaign for vice chairman has been greater than a supply of home-state pleasure or a calculated effort to slender the social gathering’s losses in rural America.
To them, it’s recommended a minimum of the potential for one thing greater — a revival of the type of prairie populism they revered within the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, whose title and likeness Democrats nonetheless placed on bumper stickers and T-shirts right here. They keep in mind when Democrats — progressive Democrats, for that matter — have been successful races not simply within the Twin Cities, however on the Iron Vary and in farm nation, too.
The day that Harris chosen Walz, one of many senator’s sons, David Wellstone — who helped begin Camp Wellstone, the political coaching camp Walz attended initially of his political profession — informed me Walz has “all the time been a Wellstone-type individual, ever for the reason that camps,” and that he noticed in him a promise that his father’s “legacy’s nonetheless transferring.”
Simply as important was that it was occurring right here, within the Midwest. For the reason that ascendancy of the Clintons, a part of the Midwestern critique of the Democratic Celebration has been that it’s principally a celebration common by elite, coastal liberals. And inside Minnesota — as in different states — a part of the rural- and small-town criticism of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Celebration, because the Democrats are recognized right here, is precisely the identical, substituting the Twin Cities on this case for California or New York.
“The magic of Tim Walz,” mentioned Jeff Blodgett, a longtime Democratic strategist within the state who labored for Wellstone, “is he’s a candidate not from the metro space … who was in a position to win over voters within the metro space, in addition to do higher than most statewide Democrats do in rural areas, too.”
“That needed to do with the truth that he’s from a small city, he talks that language, he seems to be the half,” Blodgett mentioned. “The truth that he had these type of small-town qualities to him, that allowed him to attach with individuals rather well outdoors the Twin Cities.”
For some time, anyway.
In 2006, in his first Home marketing campaign, Walz ran 13 share factors forward of the Republican incumbent, Gil Gutknecht, in Freeborn County. Six years later, he did even higher, carrying 64 p.c of the vote.
However by 2016, Walz was fading right here. He gained about 53 p.c of the vote in Freeborn in his Home race that yr. Two years later, in his first run for governor, Walz beat his Republican opponent within the county by a good narrower margin. And when he ran for reelection in 2022, he received clobbered in Freeborn — dropping to a comparatively weak Republican challenger, Scott Jensen, by almost 15 share factors.
That’s a virtually 30 share level swing in opposition to him from his first race to his final.
“I don’t perceive it,” mentioned Larry Baker, a member of the Albert Lea Metropolis Council. “It’s simply bizarre.”
Baker, an unbiased, informed me he tries to not speak about partisan politics. It makes his work on the council tougher. However Walz, he mentioned, “made sense. He was a straight shooter … You hearken to a man like Tim Walz, you understand, he’s a instructor for all these years, and it’s type of refreshing, as a result of he will get all the way down to the fundamentals on what we needs to be doing.”
Of voters’ shift away from him, Baker mentioned, “I don’t know what occurred. It’s arduous to say.”
One clarification is that it’s Walz who modified. A former Nationwide Guardsman and public faculty instructor from small-town Nebraska, he’d reduce a average profile in Washington together with his assist for the Keystone XL pipeline, his vote in opposition to the financial institution bailout in 2008 and his ‘A’ score from the NRA.
Then, as governor — now not representing a conservative-leaning Home district, however a state the place Democrats management the levers of presidency — he traded his outdated persona for a extra progressive one, signing into legislation every thing from common background checks to free faculty lunches and protections for abortion and gender-affirming care. (The Republican insult “Tampon Tim” comes from a invoice requiring public faculties to offer their college students entry to menstrual merchandise).
None of that performed nicely in locations like Freeborn County.
“I name it the Democrat ‘smash and seize’ within the Capitol,” mentioned Karla Salier, who was within the bleachers to observe her son, Jack, journey a horse in a Sundown Saddle Membership occasion on the county fairgrounds. “They went for every thing they may get to make us a sanctuary for transgenders and illegals. They simply went nuts.”
When her husband, Invoice, referred to as Walz a “phony,” she mentioned, “A flannel shirt doesn’t imply you mix in within the nation.”
And there’s the lingering resentment for the Covid restrictions Walz oversaw as governor. Earlier than a restaurant proprietor in Albert Lea was convicted of six misdemeanors for preserving her enterprise open in violation of emergency orders, supporters right here rallied to assist elevate cash for her authorized fund. This summer time, the New York Put up ran her story below the headline: “Minn. grandma points warning after getting jailed over Walz’s COVID lockdown: ‘You do not need tyranny at this degree.’”
Rick Kahn, a good friend of Walz’s who has suggested him and was a longtime good friend and marketing campaign treasurer to Wellstone, informed me the governor’s drop-off in assist outdoors of the Twin Cities between 2018 and 2022 primarily mirrored frustration over his Covid response.
“Take into consideration the demonization that occurred revolving round all of the Covid-era restrictions, and that there was a higher sense of resentment, a higher sense of anger in higher Minnesota about why are our faculties closed down, why are the companies closed, why did we’ve got to get vaccinated, why did we’ve got to put on masks,” he mentioned. “I personally consider that was the one and solely factor between 2018 and 2022 for Tim in Minnesota, that there have been nonetheless these arduous emotions.”
Kahn remembered assembly with Walz earlier than he first ran for workplace in 2006. And once I bumped into Kahn this summer time on the Democratic Nationwide Conference, he’d simply seen Walz that morning.
“Identical man,” Kahn mentioned. “This isn’t some model of Tim. It’s Tim.”
The opposite clarification for Walz’s erosion of assist in Freeborn — the one the info would appear to again up — is that it had little or no to do with him in any respect, and extra to do with voters right here.
Eric Ostermeier, a College of Minnesota professor who writes the “Sensible Politics” weblog, ran via the numbers for me: Of the 70 seats Democrats held within the state Home when it convened earlier this yr, 40 sat within the suburbs or exurbs, 18 got here from Minneapolis and St. Paul, and 10 extra from Duluth, Rochester and a handful of faculty cities. Meaning Democrats held simply two districts in what might be thought of out-state, non-college city areas of Minnesota.
And politically, there’s little crucial to care about these areas in any respect. Democrats in Minnesota management not solely the governor’s mansion, however each homes of the legislature. And that was after two longtime Democrats from the Iron Vary left the social gathering in 2020 to kind their very own, extra average caucus of two.
“The devastation of the Democrats within the higher Minnesota and rural areas has been pretty swift in latest a long time,” Ostermeier mentioned, “and is nearly full.”
A part of that could be Walz, he mentioned. However a part of it’s the voters — and the way they appear to view any Democrat. Think about Collin Peterson, the Home Agriculture chair from the district neighboring Walz’s who was ousted in 2020 after 30 years in Congress. It’s arduous to get extra rural or conservative than Peterson, who didn’t assist Trump’s impeachment and who voted in favor of gun rights and anti-abortion laws.
“You’re questioning if in Freeborn County or a few of these different counties, may any Democrat carry out nicely?” Ostermeier mentioned. “Properly, finally, even the seventh Congressional District turned on Collin Peterson, and he didn’t actually change.”
“I feel the voters modified,” he mentioned. “And I might say that is the opposite side of it, is the willingness of voters to separate their ticket has modified. As a result of I feel with individuals of their [information] silos and more and more characterizing the opposite facet as evil, it’s troublesome for individuals to say, nicely, there’s this one good Democrat and I’m nonetheless going to vote for him, or there’s this one good Republican … he’s not so unhealthy.”
Ostermeier added, “Which is saying social gathering over character, I suppose.”
Members of the Freeborn County Democrats repeatedly meet for espresso at MineAgain’s Bar & Grill in Albert Lea, and on the morning I joined them, an activist was attempting to steer Joe Staloch, a candidate for a state legislative seat, that what he wanted most was a “gimmick.”
Staloch wasn’t : “I don’t care about ‘gimmicks’,” he informed him. He mentioned he cared about well being care and childcare and financial alternative and gun management — and, most of all when he signed as much as run, “to do what I can as a candidate to beat Trump.”
Democrats right here know the way lengthy their prospects are. Earlier that day, once I requested Julie Ackland, the chair of the Freeborn County Democrats and a candidate for county commissioner, about her marketing campaign, she informed me, “I don’t have an excellent likelihood.” In reality, she has a lot else happening professionally and in any other case, she mentioned, “I’m regretting signing up.”
There have been a few dozen individuals at espresso, and I used to be sitting on the different finish of the desk from Ackland.
“It’s the farmers, they won’t vote Democratic. It’s terrible,” one of many ladies sitting throughout from me mentioned.
“It’s the tradition wars, too,” mentioned one other.
“Persons are hurting a method or one other,” Staloch mentioned. “Typically it’s monetary, typically they don’t really feel like they’re becoming in.”
Trump, he mentioned, “is just not pulling punches and he’s not being politically appropriate and that’s interesting to some individuals.”
“Lots of people,” one of many DFLers sitting close to him mentioned.
Ackland and her husband, Mark, informed me they knew some Republicans they doubted would vote for Trump this yr — a cousin, a Republican who had written a letter to the editor they’d learn.
However they’d additionally seen Democrats earlier than Walz try to fail right here. Exterior of city, not removed from the Ackland’s soybean and sweetcorn farm, I met with Terry Gjersvik on the farm the place he raises goats.
When he ran for a state Home seat in 2018, he was sure he may win the agricultural vote. He had a household title that farmers knew. He lived in the home his grandfather purchased in 1939. His marketing campaign supervisor, Mac Ehrhardt, was the chair of an area firm, Albert Lea Seed. Walz campaigned with him.
“We thought, look, I’m a farmer. We’re going to get the farmer vote,” he informed me.
As an alternative, after he misplaced to the Republican incumbent, Peggy Bennett, by about 13 share factors, he mentioned a few of the individuals who voted in opposition to him informed him, “I belief you, however I don’t belief your social gathering.”
Gjersvik mentioned he’s optimistic that “there could be a one, two or three-percent crumble” in Trump’s numbers in rural areas, and that having Walz campaigning with Harris may assist. However then there are all of the Trump indicators he sees.
Right this moment, he mentioned, “I don’t suppose Trump has ever been stronger in rural areas.”
And what if Democrats do handle to chop into Trump’s margins by a share level or two? It may tip elections in shut states, considerably. And although it wouldn’t mark a wholesale change for the social gathering’s standing in rural America, to optimistic Democrats, it might be a begin.
Walz gained the governorship as a result of he racked up large margins within the Twin Cities and their suburbs. His election night time map in 2022 — with bursts of blue round Minneapolis and St. Paul, Rochester and Duluth, surrounded by seas of purple — wasn’t a lot completely different from Biden’s in 2020.
However he nonetheless went to these locations. Kahn mentioned having somebody on the ticket who “welcomes the chance to speak to individuals who don’t already agree and make the case and really hearken to what they should say,” may “make an actual distinction in decreasing the sense of anger that underscores the polarization.”
Or it may go the way in which it’s going now.
The morning after the Albert Lea Civil Struggle Roundtable, the place about 30 individuals gathered to listen to a presentation on the Grand Military of the Republic, I discovered Munyer consuming espresso with mates on the Hy-Vee. Between the 2 events, he mentioned, “Proper now, I feel there’s a peaceable coexistence.”
However he wasn’t certain it will be sustainable after the election.
“Whoever doesn’t win, they’ll be very upset,” he mentioned. “Both approach, I feel there’s going to be some violence.”
And after that?
“Be taught from the Civil Struggle,” he mentioned. “Attempt to rebuild.”
