GOP vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has been a "very divisive governor" in the state of Minnesota, David Hann, the chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, told Newsmax on Sunday.
"He's probably the most partisan governor that I've ever seen in my memory, and he's governed from the very, very far-left position of the base of the Democratic Party," Hann told Newsmax's "Sunday Report."
Hann added that Walz, a former school teacher and member of the U.S. Army National Guard, has "never had a job outside of a government job," so "he doesn't understand how private economies or the private market work."
Walz has also adopted "very far-left policies," particularly with border security, Hann continued.
"He's made Minnesota a sanctuary state, offered all kinds of benefits to illegal immigrants to try to attract them to Minnesota," he said. "I think if the Democrats believe that Tim Walz is going to balance their ticket from a very, very far-left presidential candidate in Kamala Harris, they've picked the wrong person. "He is as far left as Kamala Harris, maybe even more so."
Hann further tackled Walz on his handling of the 2020 George Floyd riots in Minneapolis, saying he let the city "essentially burn, including one of the police precincts, which still has not been rebuilt."
The city has not recovered, and there has been a "massive exodus" of business and a spike in violent crime, said Hann.
"It's very difficult to recruit police officers to serve in a political environment where the politicians are embracing this defund the police mantra that Ilhan Omar and Gov. Walz and the rest of the Democrats in Minnesota seem to be all on board for," said Hann. "They think that the real problem is policing, not the criminal element that is out of control. So this has been a disaster and it has not recovered yet. Our biggest city in Minnesota is still kind of a ghost town."
Meanwhile, Walz will back all of Harris' policies, since he's as far left as she is, said Hann.
"He has been very, very difficult to work with, as Republicans in the legislature have found," he said. "He has been very uncompromising, very unwilling to try to be a more open, bipartisan governor, even though our state politically is very evenly divided."
Since Walz is in sync with Harris, "that bodes not well for Democrats if they're trying to find a way to attract those independent voters who are maybe not hardcore Democrats," Hann said.
Meanwhile, Hann said he thinks Minnesota is in play for Republicans this fall, because of the dissatisfaction with the Biden administration and also with Walz as governor.
"A lot of independent voters are very dissatisfied with his economic policies," said Hann. "This might be an opportunity for voters in Minnesota, Republicans, and independents to get out to the polls and vote against a governor that they are very frustrated with. So we do think it's a winnable state for Republicans. We do think that we're going to see a Republican president get elected in Minnesota for the first time in 52 years."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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