OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has not participated in any one-on-one interviews since Election Day, when the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign was defeated by Republican Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance.
However, he offered a glimpse into his thoughts following the loss during a news conference at the Minnesota State Capitol, where he celebrated the state’s turkey industry in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday, KSTP.com reported on Tuesday.
“No regrets,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “I regret few things in life other than I didn’t get a dog sooner. That’s my biggest regret. But no, I’m proud to have been part of that [campaign]. I think we put a message out that 75 million liked, but not quite enough.”
The Harris-Walz ticket lost all seven key battleground states, along with the national popular vote. While Governor Tim Walz was optimistic heading into Election Day, he remains realistic about the outcome. He finds some solace in the fact that the campaign gave him the chance to highlight Minnesota on a national stage.
“To be honest, glad to tell Minnesota’s story,” he said. “That we get things done together and (showed) we’re pretty hopeful people.”
Now, the outlet noted, Walz will put his optimism to the test with the upcoming legislative session, where Democrats will share power with Republicans for the first time since 2021. He noted that it will become clearer how they will collaborate and how much funding they’ll have to work with once the state budget forecast is released next week.
“I think at this time we’re waiting to see (how) the forecast comes in,” he said. “We will get an opportunity then to see what the incoming (Trump) administration will do in mid-January and then we will get the opportunity to put out our budget and then a revised budget when the February numbers actually come in.”
He added that he’s concerned about a potential trade war that could impact Minnesota’s agricultural industry, KSTP.com added.
Walz also addressed supporters in a recent video:
Tim Walz says that Trump’s win is “a bit scary” and tells supporters to “take time to heal” before getting back in the fight. pic.twitter.com/fIK1A59n2D
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 27, 2024
A surrogate for Harris’ campaign against now-President-elect Donald Trump told “Fox & Friends Weekend” last week that she was “misled” by top officials and that the overall effort by the vice president was an “epic disaster.”
Lindy Li, who said she raised “millions” for Harris, explained to co-host Will Cain that Harris’s campaign officials made a series of false promises and repeatedly claimed that the internal data showed the vice president would handily defeat Trump.
“This is just an epic disaster. This is a one-billion-dollar disaster,” Li said, referencing how the losing Harris campaign blew through $1 billion in fundraising and ended up with millions of dollars in debt.
“It’s incredible, and I raised millions of that. I have friends that I have to be accountable to and to explain what happened because I told them it was a margin of error race,” she added.
Li stated that Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon assured all Harris surrogates that the vice president would win, even going so far as to produce videos to reinforce the message. “I believed her. My daughters believed her. And so, they wrote massive checks,” Li told the Fox News co-host. “I feel like a lot of us were misled.”
She also told Cain earlier in the interview that the “backstabbing” between Biden and Harris began long before the vice president replaced him on the 2024 ticket.
“It was a lot of backstabbing we saw in the press; people were leaking stuff all the time. The White House was leaking like a sieve when it came to Kamala Harris,” said Li.
“In the final years she was able to stabilize and stop the bleeding of her staff because there was a lot of turnover as well. And we saw the press report about that. And things have finally started to calm down,” she said, going on to add that President Joe Biden’s rapid endorsement of his VP was in response to his anger at the Democratic machine for forcing him out.
“Kamala Harris wasn’t at the top of the ticket,” Li said. “Biden’s endorsement of Harris caught a lot of people off guard. Even the chief Dems of the party.”
“I really think it was a big fu— a big ‘F you,’ I’m so sorry,” she said to Cain, catching herself before finishing the statement. She also said that there was constant friction between the Biden and Harris camps.
