Timothy James Walz (/wɔːlz/ ⓘ; born April 6, 1964) is an American politician, former educator, and retired United States Army non-commissioned officer who has served since 2019 as the 41st governor of Minnesota.

[6] His father, James Frederick Walz, was a teacher and school superintendent who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War,[7][8] and had worked in the family's butcher shop as a child.

[9] Tim is of German, Swedish, Luxembourgish, and Irish descent;[10] in 1867 his great-great-grandfather Sebastian Walz emigrated to the United States from Kuppenheim, Germany.

[14] Walz and his three siblings grew up in Valentine, Nebraska,[15] a small rural town in the north-central part of the state, in an area of farms and ranchland near the South Dakota border.

[20] Walz's father died in January 1984,[21] leaving his mother and younger brother dependent on Social Security survivor benefits for support.

[5][26] After graduating from Chadron State College, Walz accepted a one-year teaching position with WorldTeach at Foshan No.1 High School in Guangdong, China.

[48] During his military career, he had postings in Arkansas, Texas, near the Arctic Circle in Norway; New Ulm, Minnesota, northwest of Mankato; Italy, and elsewhere.

[54] In August 2003, he deployed with the Minnesota National Guard to Vicenza, Italy, for nine months, to serve with the European Security Force as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

[53][55][56] He attained the rank of command sergeant major near the end of his service[57] and briefly was the senior enlisted soldier of 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery Regiment.

[55][63] He later explained that he retired in order to focus on his campaign for Congress and did not want to violate the Hatch Act, which forbids some political activities by federal government employees.

[66][67][68] During his political career, Republicans, notably Donald Trump Jr., Charlie Kirk, and JD Vance, have used the timing of Walz's military retirement as a smear campaign that has been compared to swiftboating.

He won a third term in 2010 with 49% of the vote in a three-way race against Republican state representative Randy Demmer and independent former diplomat Steve Wilson.

[112] As a member of the House Transportation Committee, he saw the stimulus bill as an opportunity to work "with his congressional colleagues to make job creation through investment in public infrastructure like roads, bridges and clean energy the cornerstone of the economic recovery plan".

[113] Walz has focused heavily on job and economic issues important to the southern Minnesota district he represented in Congress, which has a mix of larger employers such as the Mayo Clinic and small businesses and agricultural interests.

[119] In a February 2009 speech, he said that the most important thing to do "to ensure a solid base for [America's] economic future ... is to provide the best education possible for [American] children.

[127] In 2016, he voted to condemn UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which called the building of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories a violation of international law.

[165] In April 2023, he signed the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which banned state agencies from "enforcing out-of-state subpoenas, arrest warrants, and extradition requests" for people who travel to Minnesota for legal abortion, limited the release of related health records,[166][167] and cut funding for crisis pregnancy centers,[168] organizations established by anti-abortion groups primarily to persuade pregnant women not to have abortions[169][170] that often share inaccurate or misleading medical information.

[171][172][173][168] In early 2023, Walz signed a law requiring Minnesota to obtain all of its electricity from wind, solar, and other carbon-free sources by 2040, phasing out the climate-warming pollution generated by coal and gas-fired power plants, in addition to a variety of other measures to preserve and expand peatlands, forests, pollinator habitats, electric vehicle charger networks, access to home weatherization, embedded emissions cuts in buildings, green banking, and green-collar worker apprenticeships.

[184] Soon afterward, Walz signed into law HF2887, which provides $9 billion over the long term to transportation projects, including reforms to climate impact considerations and transit infrastructure permitting.

At the end of the 2023 legislative session, he signed a bill allocating $2.2 billion in additional funding for K-12 education, amounting to about $400 more per student annually than previous levels.

[211] In 2024, he appointed Melanie Benjamin of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and Johnny Johnson of the Prairie Island Indian Community to the nine-member Minnesota Racing Commission.

[221] In October 2023, Walz publicly supported Biden for reelection and dismissed U.S. Representative Dean Phillips's announcement of a run for the Democratic nomination for president, saying, "It's not going to be relevant, and we'll just move on.

[232] His selection was praised by an ideologically diverse group of politicians, including progressive Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, centrist independent senator Joe Manchin, and moderate Republican former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan.

Walz's political supporters responded favorably to the nickname and the law,[238] and the editorial board of the Minnesota Star Tribune published a defense of the initiative.

[243] At one point, Walz was confronted with recently unearthed statements he had made about having been in Hong Kong for a teaching position during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; in response, he said: "I'm a knucklehead.

[257] While in Congress, Walz was a strong supporter of gun rights and was endorsed by the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) multiple times, receiving an A grade from the organization.

[258][259] Following the Parkland high school shooting in 2018, he denounced the NRA in a Star Tribune opinion piece, and announced that he would donate the equivalent of all of the campaign contributions the NRA-PVF had given him—$18,000—to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.

[264] After the 2024 Minnesota Democratic presidential primary, in which 19% of voters cast "uncommitted" ballots, Walz took a sympathetic view toward those doing so to protest President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza, calling them "civically engaged".

These folks are asking for a change in course, they're asking for more pressure to be put on... You can hold competing things: that Israel has the right to defend itself, and the atrocities of October 7 are unacceptable, but Palestinian civilians being caught in this... has got to end.

[267][268] The law also mandates paid sick leave for employees and increases safety inspections and ergonomics requirements to reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries for warehouse, meatpacking, and healthcare facility workers.