Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), Kamala Harris’ running mate, once again found himself at odds with the U.S. Constitution earlier this week when he insisted that the Electoral College “needs to go” in favor of a national popular vote.
On Tuesday, Walz spoke at a fundraiser at the private Sacramento residence of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). There, Walz lamented the framework established by the Founding Fathers to elect America’s president.
“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” he told the crowd. “But that’s not the world we live in. So we need to win Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.”
Walz is right that the Electoral College forces presidential and vice presidential candidates to appeal to less populated areas of the country to secure victory. In fact, without the Electoral College, the state he represents, Minnesota, which has nearly 3.7 million registered voters, would have almost no impact on the results of a nationwide election involving 120 to 150 million votes.
Still, Walz told supporters in California that he is “a national popular vote guy” and that “we need a national popular vote.”
‘Is Tampon Tim laying the groundwork to claim President Trump’s victory is illegitimate?’
Afterward, the Harris-Walz campaign quickly scrambled to clean up Walz’s latest seemingly anti-constitutional blunder.
“Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the Electoral College and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket,” an unidentified spokesperson said in a statement to the New York Times.
“He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes. And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts.”
Addressing his many verbal missteps — and in some cases, seemingly boldfaced lies — since he was tapped to join Harris on the 2024 Democratic ticket, Walz also said last week, “I speak like everybody else speaks. I need to be clearer. I will tell you that.”
In response to Walz’s comments about the Electoral College, the Trump campaign suggested the Minnesota governor harbors animus for the U.S. Constitution in general.
“Why does Tampon Tim hate the Constitution so much?” said a tweet from Trump War Room, employing a humorous nickname given to Walz for implementing a policy that allows Minnesota public schools to offer feminine hygiene products in boys’ bathrooms.
“He hates the First Amendment. He hates the Supreme Court. He hates the Electoral College. But he sure loves communist China!”
A tweet from Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt added, “Is Tampon Tim laying the groundwork to claim President Trump’s victory is illegitimate?”
While Harris’ team has reiterated that Walz’s opinions on the Electoral College do not reflect the official opinions of the campaign, Harris herself has previously questioned the continued relevance of the Electoral College, especially since recent Democrat presidential candidates Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 struggled to compete in it.
“There’s no question that the popular vote has been diminished in terms of making the final decision about who’s the president of the United States, and we need to deal with that,” Harris said in 2019, when she launched her first campaign for president.
“So I’m open to the discussion.”
As Trump War Room suggested, Walz’s recent dig against the Electoral College is hardly his first open criticism or misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In apparent defiance of the First Amendment, he once said in an MSNBC interview that “there’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”
Standing on his authority as a former Minnesota National Guardsman, Walz also advocated for restricting gun rights otherwise protected by the Second Amendment, suggesting that weapons such as those that he “carried in war” should be available only to American service members and not to everyday civilians.
Incidentally, Walz never went to “war” in a combat zone.
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Constitution, Electoral college, Kamala harris, National popular vote, Tim walz, Politics
