Rural Minnesota voters from Tim Walz’s former congressional district slammed the Democratic vice presidential nominee for acting like a "chameleon," adding that "a flannel shirt doesn’t mean you blend in in the country," Politico reported Friday.
Walz, a former public school teacher from the Midwest, struck a moderate tone in 2006 while running for Congress in Minnesota’s conservative-leaning first district. But after he became governor in 2019, Walz's embrace of his party’s progressive policies increasingly alienated voters in greater Minnesota, including those in Walz’s former district in Freeborn County, according to Politico.
"A flannel shirt doesn’t mean you blend in in the country," Freeborn resident Karla Salier said of Walz. "[The Democrats] went for everything they could get to make us a sanctuary for transgenders and illegals. They just went nuts."
As governor, Walz signed a series of progressive initiatives into law, including universal background checks for gun purchases, increased access to abortion, and a pro-LGBT bill requiring menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms at school, Politico reported.
A retired teacher in Freeborn County called Walz a "chameleon" who is more "California East, or California Midwest."
Another resident said when he saw Walz wearing a camo-print cap, all he saw was someone who wanted to be "a friend to everybody."
"I don’t like that crap, sucking up to everybody," he said.
The backlash from rural voters in Walz’s home state could spell trouble for the Harris campaign, which hoped the Minnesota governor would draw in more Midwestern voters.
"He plays himself as a former teacher from out-state Minnesota, but his base definitely seems to be more metro," said former mayor of Albert Lea, Minn., Mike Murtaugh.
Walz has struggled to boost support for Harris in his own state. A poll last month found 40 percent of the state’s independents favoring former president Donald Trump and only 23 percent backing the Harris-Walz ticket.
"I don’t think Trump has ever been stronger in rural areas," one Freeborn resident told Politico, citing all the Trump signs he has been seeing in the county.
Recent polls nationwide and in Minnesota showed Trump’s support in rural areas and small towns hovering above 60 percent, up from 57 percent at the end of his presidential term four years ago, Politico reported.