Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says his days as a political candidate are finished, declaring unequivocally that he will never seek elected office again, as reported by The New York Post.
“I will never run for an elected office again. Never again,” Walz told MS NOW in an interview published this week.
The statement marks the clearest signal yet that the two-term Democratic governor is stepping away from electoral politics after months of controversy and mounting pressure in his home state.
Walz, who was the Democratic Party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee, had already announced earlier this month that he would abandon a planned 2026 run for a third term as governor.
At the time, however, he left the door open to future campaigns. His latest comments appear to close that door entirely.
The announcement comes as Walz faces sustained criticism from Donald Trump, Republicans, and some Democrats over a massive fraud scandal unfolding in Minnesota.
Federal prosecutors say the alleged fraud—linked to meal programs, housing initiatives, daycare centers, and Medicaid services—could ultimately exceed $1 billion and potentially reach as much as $9 billion.
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More than 90 people have been charged since 2022, many from Minnesota’s large Somali community.
Prosecutors have said some defendants used stolen funds to purchase luxury vehicles, real estate, jewelry, and international vacations, while some money was allegedly sent overseas and may have ended up in the hands of Islamic terrorists.
“This is on my watch, I am accountable for this and, more importantly, I am the one that will fix it,” Walz said in December, publicly taking responsibility for the scandal as it dominated headlines and reshaped the state’s political landscape.
Since Walz’s withdrawal from the 2026 race, Minnesota has also become a focal point in the national debate over immigration enforcement.
The state has seen widespread protests following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis who were protesting federal agents during deportation operations connected to the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Referring to those protests, Walz praised demonstrators, saying there are “heroes on the streets that we don’t know their names.”
He added, “They’re never going to run for office, and those grass-tops leaders brought this administration to their knees this week to do something about it. So there’s other ways to serve, and I’ll find them.”
TIM WALZ: “I have no political considerations. I will never run for an elected office again. Never again.”
He knows he’d never win.
His career is over.
pic.twitter.com/y95N1o81P3— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 29, 2026
Walz first launched his re-election campaign in September, but by December, his political standing weakened significantly as details of the fraud investigation became public.
Nearly a dozen Republicans now running to replace him as governor have made the scandal a central theme of their campaigns.
On Thursday, longtime Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar formally launched her own bid for governor, giving Democrats a high-profile candidate as they attempt to hold the office.
Walz, 61, was raised in rural Nebraska and enlisted in the Army National Guard in 1981. He later served as a teacher and coach before moving to Minnesota in the mid-1990s.
He was deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003 and retired from the Guard in 2005.
Elected to Congress in 2006, Walz represented Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District for six terms before winning the governorship in 2018 and re-election in 2022.
Nationally, Walz became widely known only in 2024, when then–Vice President Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate after replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.
The Harris-Walz ticket lost the November 2024 election to Trump and now Vice President JD Vance, falling short in all seven key battleground states.
Though some pundits once floated Walz as a potential 2028 presidential contender, his latest declaration appears to bring his national political ambitions—and his time on the ballot—to a definitive end.
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