Do we like them?

Do we like Tim Walz?

Our score: 7 out of 10. Strong record on LGBTQ+ protections and clean energy, held back by a bruising oversight row and a few stretched claims.

Tim Walz is the Minnesota governor who became Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024, a bloke who sold himself as a folksy midwestern dad-and-coach type. He has been in the top job since 2019 and, after first saying he would chase an unprecedented third term, changed his mind in January 2026 and said he would not run again.

His first stumble was about his own story. In 2018 he said he had carried weapons in war, and PolitiFact found he didn’t carry weapons in combat. He did serve 24 years in the Army National Guard, so it reads as a clumsy stretch of a real career rather than an invented one.

PolitiFact also rated his line “I take responsibility for putting people in jail” as False in December 2025. Overall, it has rated nine of his claims: one True, three Half True, two Mostly False and three False. That is a few wobbles, not a pattern of whoppers.

In January 2026 federal prosecutors served grand jury subpoenas on his office and others, in a probe of whether officials conspired to impede immigration enforcement. Walz called it retaliation for political disagreement. A subpoena is not a charge, and I found nothing I could open showing where it ended up.

On the harm check he comes out well. In 2023 he signed an executive order protecting gender-affirming care, then bills shielding that care and banning conversion therapy, which helped make Minnesota a refuge for trans people. He also signed a law requiring utilities to reach 100% clean electricity by 2040. I found no harmful words of his own and nothing about dodgy company.