Governor Tim Walz, the Minnesota Democrat who briefly flickered into the national spotlight as Kamala Harris’s 2024 running mate, has announced he is "certainly considering" a presidential bid in 2028.
Despite his loss in the vice-presidential sweepstakes and a campaign that saw Harris’s ticket crash and burn against Donald Trump, Walz appears undeterred — even if the American public has no clue who he is anymore.
Walz, who has spent the last few months back in Minnesota governing a state that reliably votes blue, told reporters this week that he’s ready to take another swing at the White House.
“I think I’ve heard of him,” said Karen Thompson, a 42-year-old barista from Toledo, Ohio. “Was he that guy who yelled about tampons or something?"
Thompson isn’t alone in her confusion. Walz’s 2024 campaign stint was marked by a few viral moments — like his debate flub where he claimed to be “friends with school shooters” before backtracking — but those snippets have faded from the collective consciousness.
A recent Gallup-Wick poll found that 63% of Americans couldn’t identify Walz as Minnesota’s governor, with 12% guessing he was a character from a Netflix series.
Walz has hinted at his 2028 ambitions in a recent interview with The New Yorker, saying, “If I feel like I can serve, I will.”
Political analysts note that his tenure as governor includes progressive wins like codifying abortion rights and putting tampons in little boys' rooms, though none of that seems to have stuck with voters.
“Who’s Tim Walz?” asked Miguel Alvarez, a 29-year-old mechanic from Phoenix, Arizona.
After the Harris-Walz ticket failed to clinch the presidency, losing key swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Walz returned to St. Paul to finish his term, which ends in 2027. Some speculate his wife, Gwen, is pushing him to run in 2028, seeing it as a chance to climb back into relevance.
“I swear he was on TV a lot last year,” said Janet Pierce, a 57-year-old retiree from Tampa, Florida. “But now? No idea. Maybe he’s that guy who lost on Jeopardy?”
Pierce’s guess isn’t far off the mark for a man whose national debut peaked during a vice-presidential debate against J.D. Vance, where he struggled to explain past exaggerations about his time in China.
Posts on X have been less kind, with users mocking Walz’s potential run as “the most forgettable comeback since Blockbuster tried selling DVDs again.” Still, Walz insists he’s not done fighting for Minnesota — or, apparently, for a country that’s already moved on.
“I think he’s a senator or something,” offered Todd Grayson, a 35-year-old Uber driver from Denver, Colorado. “Good luck to him, I guess.”
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