Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, speaks during a debate at the CBS Broadcast Center on October 1, 2024 in New York City. This is expected to be the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 general election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Endless post-mortems have dissected where the Democrats go after their loss in November. But Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz knows exactly what will pull the party out of the wilderness: universal health care.
In an interview with “Fast Politics,” Walz said Democrats needed to offer a bolder vision in the next round of elections.
“When we get back, which we will – we’ll fight – I’ll tell you what people are going to expect is they’re not going to expect us to tinker around the edge with the ACA [Affordable Care Act.] They’re going to expect universal health care,” Walz said. “A saying I always said is, ‘You lead with good policy and good politics will follow.’”
Walz, who ruled out a Senate run earlier this week, recalled the massive policy wins that Minnesota Democrats achieved with a razor-thin majority in the state legislature as evidence that Dems can get it done.
“If there’s a lesson here, I always said this: we had a one-vote majority in Minnesota when we moved clean energy, we moved reproductive rights, we moved a whole slew of progressive, very popular, including things around guns and gun safety, very popular things,” Walz said. “We moved it with a one-vote majority.”
Walz also spoke about the struggles of running a state government as the administration of President Donald Trump leads an assault on funding.
“As a governor, you’re trying to triage the situation as it stands,” Walz said. “You’re trying to craft a budget, a normal budget in an environment where there’s just such great uncertainty about what he does and what it means to our people.”
Asked about specific cuts to Minnesota organizations, Walz said his administration would do its best to keep important services afloat.
“Now look, if they cut our funding, it’s $2 billion, out of a roughly $30 billion state budget,” he said. “So it’s a massive hole that we can’t fill alone, but there are things that we can do. There are things that we can push back on. There are things that we can separate.”
Watch the full interview here: