Gov. Tim Walz drops reelection bid, Klobuchar may run instead

JAMIE KELTER DAVIS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, during a meeting with small business owners in Minneapolis, on Dec. 19, 2025. Walz said today that he was abandoning his bid for reelection to a third term. And Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Democrat, is considering seeking the office, two people briefed on conversations between the two politicians said.

ST. PAUL, Minn. >> Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said today that he was abandoning his bid for reelection to a third term. And Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Democrat, is considering seeking the office, two people briefed on conversations between the two politicians said.

Walz and Klobuchar met Sunday in Minnesota, where he informed her of his plans, and she confirmed her interest in running to succeed him. For Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2024 election, the departure caps a brief rise in national politics.

Walz said a widening scandal over fraud in social services programs in Minnesota had persuaded him to drop out of the race. He had been criticized for his administration’s oversight of the programs and its failure to prevent widespread fraud.

“I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,” Walz said in a statement he read aloud during a news conference today. “Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.”

Klobuchar did not respond to requests for comment this morning.

Walz’s decision jolts a race that had drawn an unusually large and strong slate of Republican candidates, including the speaker of the Minnesota House, Lisa Demuth, and Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and an ally of President Donald Trump. Republicans have not won a statewide race in Minnesota since 2006, but they have expressed confidence that this year’s governor’s race would be different.

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Democrats in the state had voiced concern in recent weeks that Walz’s presence on the ticket might hurt other Democrats in November.

Walz’s exit comes amid national scrutiny of his handling of the welfare fraud scandal, which Trump and other top Republicans have assailed him for in recent weeks.

A former public school teacher who served in Congress for 12 years before becoming governor, Walz, 61, had signaled ambivalence last year about seeking a third term. During the summer, shortly before announcing he would run again, the governor said in an interview that he had been trying to gauge whether Minnesotans wanted him to stay in office.

“I think you need to think through: Well, do you have the ability to do the job? Have you done well?” Walz said, describing questions he was wrestling with.

In September, Walz announced that he did intend to run again. At the time, he said he was proud of a legacy that included passing numerous bills that pushed the state to the left in 2023, when Democrats had majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature.

Soon after that announcement, the fraud scandal began dogging his candidacy.

Later that month, federal prosecutors announced that an investigation into fraud in a COVID-19 program meant to feed children had broadened to include other safety net programs administered by Walz’s administration. Federal prosecutors have asserted that as much as $9 billion may have been stolen over a period of years when Walz’s administration was overseeing state programs.

More than 90 people have been charged with felonies in the federal fraud cases to date and at least 60 have been convicted. The vast majority of defendants are of Somali origin.

Republicans accused Walz and fellow Democrats of failing to respond forcefully to red flags about theft in state-run programs in part because Somali Americans are an influential voting bloc for Democrats.

Walz has called that accusation baseless but has acknowledged that fraud had become a pervasive problem in the state, and he announced a series of measures to improve oversight.

As the scandal continued to make national headlines, providing Republicans a powerful line of attack, Democrats began expressing worry that the scandal would hobble Walz’s campaign.

The leading Republicans running for governor have made combating fraud their signature issue.

“Even as we make progress in the fight against the fraudsters, we now see an organized group of political actors seeking to take advantage of the crisis,” Walz said in the statement announcing he was dropping out.

The Trump administration has repeatedly focused on the fraud scandal and threatened to cut funding for Minnesota safety net programs, arguing that Democrats in the state could not be trusted to prevent taxpayer funds from being stolen.

Over the weekend, the White House announced that the Department of Justice was sending additional personnel and resources to Minnesota to “crush Minnesota’s fraud epidemic.”

“These complex criminal networks didn’t build themselves overnight on Tim Walz’s watch, and rooting them out completely requires thorough, methodical work to build cases that secure convictions and recover taxpayer dollars,” a statement from the White House said.

Interest in the fraud scandal grew in the past week, following a viral video created by Nick Shirley, a conservative content creator. In the video, Shirley purported to have exposed rampant fraud in government-subsidized day care centers run by Somalis in the Minneapolis area.

The video — which did not conclusively prove malfeasance — drew praise from top officials in the Trump administration and Minnesota Republicans.

Republicans today in the state suggested that they would continue to focus on the fraud issue even with Walz out of the race.

“Minnesota’s fraud epidemic extends well beyond any one individual,” said Harry Niska, a Republican state representative. “It is the result of nearly two decades of Democrat governors, backed by their legislative allies, creating a culture of complacency that has cost Minnesotans and their families billions of dollars.”

Klobuchar, 65, a former state prosecutor, has long held ambitions beyond her Senate seat. She ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and has not given up her desire to hold executive office.

She has won each of her four Senate terms by at least 16 percentage points in a state that Democrats have controlled for more than a decade but often has close statewide elections. Should Klobuchar become the governor, she would appoint her own replacement who would serve until a special election is held to complete the remainder of her term, which ends in 2030.

Shortly after Walz announced he was suspending his campaign, Klobuchar praised him in a statement that did not shed light on her own plans.

“Governor Walz made the difficult decision to focus on his job and the challenges facing our state rather than campaigning and running for reelection,” Klobuchar said. “He has always dedicated his career to delivering for Minnesota.”

For Walz, the decision to forgo a third term puts a cap on a rapid rise from being a little-known Midwestern governor to his party’s vice-presidential nominee to someone mentioned as a potential top presidential candidate on his own.

Walz spent years carefully building his profile behind the scenes before he emerged as a potential running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris before she chose him last summer. But his turn on the national stage quickly turned rocky.

Questions emerged about inconsistencies in his personal biography. Democrats panned his debate performance, and Harris wrote in her campaign memoir that he wasn’t her first choice.

His supporters today said the governor’s decision exemplified Walz’s dedication to the state. Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said, “Today’s decision is entirely consistent with who Tim is.”

Martin, who is from Minnesota and formerly served as the chair of the state party, added, “Tim has always believed that leadership isn’t about preserving your own power — it’s about using it to make a difference for as many people as possible.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2026 The New York Times Company

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