Former Minnesota GOP governor sums up Tim Walz VP pick: 'Bernie Sanders in hunting gear'

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, said the choice of current Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate shows Democrats are doubling down on a "democrat-socialist agenda." 

Pawlenty, a former GOP presidential candidate who was governor of Minnesota from 2003-2011, told FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul Walz is "philosophically and politically" aligned with Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, but brings "a different style and different geography" to the 2024 Democratic ticket.

"She has sort of the San Francisco, California, vibe. He's going to have sort of the Bernie Sanders in hunting gear vibe," said Pawlenty. "So, it's the same product, just in different wrappers."

Harris announced her selection of Walz to be the Democratic nominee for vice president in a social media post that praised his progressive record. 

VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS NAMES MINNESOTA GOV. TIM WALZ AS HER RUNNING MATE

"As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his," Harris said. 

"He worked with Republicans to pass infrastructure investments. He cut taxes for working families. He passed a law to provide paid family and medical leave to Minnesotan families. He made Minnesota the first state in the country to pass a law providing constitutional abortion protections after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and as an avid hunter, he passed a bill requiring universal background checks for gun purchases." 

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Walz's record is a delight to progressives but also fodder for Republicans eager to define Harris and her running mate as too liberal and too extreme. Pawlenty said the Trump campaign is likely to go after Walz for his slow response to the 2020 George Floyd riots in Minneapolis, during which a police station was torched. He also noted that Walz presided over the largest spending increases in state history and a scandal over COVID-19 pandemic relief fraud.

"Rising crime, big high-profile fraud causes within state government under his watch, with a legislative auditor, nonpartisan, saying, ‘You’re not taking it seriously,'" said Pawlenty. "The target audience for a lot of this is going to be persuadable voters in swing states." 

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Pawlenty was vetted as a potential candidate for vice president by both 2008 nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts at the time. Pawlenty acknowledged Walz is a "good campaigner" and predicted he will bring new energy to the Harris campaign over the next 90 days before the election.

"On a personal level, he's energetic, he's friendly, he's folksy. He's interested in issues. He likes to campaign. He can talk like most politicians — I used to say, tug dogs off a meat wagon," Pawlenty said. 

"Their problem isn't going to be, you know, campaign style or skills or energy. It's going to be, is America ready for a doubling down on this democrat-socialist agenda? Trump's got his own problems, by the way," he added. "I think this ticket, the Harris-Walz ticket, would be pretty beatable if the Republicans had a better candidate. You know, they're going to be able to take advantage of the fact there's a bunch of Republicans and independents who don't like Trump."

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Pawlenty clarified that he does not support the Harris-Walz ticket and said he has voted for former President Trump in the past and may do so again. 

"I think the Trump campaign is going to make it very clear that this just isn't some, you know, moderate, centrist person," he said of Walz. "They're going to characterize it as a radical ticket. And I don't know how well that will sell in places like Pennsylvania."