Star Tribune
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz picked to lead the Democratic Governors Association
Tim Walz was picked Saturday to lead the Democratic Governors Association, a new role for Minnesota’s second-term governor that will put him on the national campaign trail in the midst of a major presidential election year.
As the next chair, Walz will become the messaging face for the organization (DGA) in 2024, traveling across the country to raise money and campaign for Democratic governor candidates in 11 states where they’re on the ballot.
“Governors are where the action is at,” Walz, a former congressman and teacher, said in an interview. “It’s easy for me to get up there and talk about this. If states elect good governors, good things happen for their people.”
Walz was selected by his peers for the job Saturday at the DGA’s meeting in Phoenix. He’ll take over the gavel on Sunday and lead the organization through 2024, replacing current chair Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey.
In the 2022 cycle, the DGA’s political action fund spent more than $23 million trying to elect Democratic governor candidates and defend incumbent governors in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, according to campaign finance records. It also put resources into Walz’s second-term bid, which he won by nearly 8 percentage points.
“They were incredibly helpful to me in 2022. I want to pay back and do some of the things to help that they did to help me,” said Walz, who added that he’ll also tout Minnesota’s productive 2023 legislative session as a model for what other states can do if they elect Democrats.
“We elected a Democrat governor to a second term, and some of these progressive issues — from reproductive health care to school meals — got done,” he said. “There’s some momentum built on that and I’m certainly humbled.”
The DGA’s Republican counterpart is the Republican Governors Association. It spent nearly $32 million on many of the same races in the previous cycle, according to federal campaign finance reports.
Fewer governor races will be on the ballot in 2024, but Democrats face the challenge of having no incumbents to defend.
In North Carolina — a state then-President Donald Trump won in 2020 — they hope to elect a new Democrat to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper. Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is also stepping down after three terms, and Delaware Gov. John Carney is hitting his term limit, leaving his seat open.
Walz sees opportunity for gains in states such as New Hampshire — carried by Joe Biden in 2020 — where Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is leaving office. Walz said he did similar work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s frontline program, helping candidates “who were just like me, in tough districts.”
“The DGA is hoping he can take some of the Minnesota magic and export it to other states around the country and win more governorships,” said DFL Party Chair Ken Martin. “[Walz] doesn’t have the biggest name in Democratic politics, but what he does have is a story to tell.”
Walz’s biggest task for the organization will be raising funds to help their candidates. Walz said he got a test run for the gig this year raising money in Minnesota for Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who held on to his seat in this fall’s election.
“The Andy Beshear race gives us incredible momentum,” Walz said. “That’s a state that Trump won by 26 points, and Beshear ran unabashedly on reproductive rights and was able to win.”
In a statement, Beshear said Walz was there for him through a “especially tough reelection campaign” and has “demonstrated he knows what it takes to win across the country.”
Walz will work with DGA staff and a handful of other governors on their campaign plan for 2024. He said he’s not worried about his ability to handle his national responsibilities on top of a busy 2024 legislative session and election cycle in Minnesota.
“I’ve always been able to multi-task, and I think even the Republicans’ critique of me is not that I don’t work hard,” Walz said. “My first and foremost responsibility is to the state of Minnesota, but I also feel this responsibility to help because we have good things going here.”
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
