Tenure
Walz was sworn in as governor of Minnesota on January 7, 2019, at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul. He took the oath of office alongside the incoming lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan; Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon; Minnesota state auditor Julie Blaha; and Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, all Democrats. Walz spoke about education and healthcare reform in his inauguration speech.
Later in 2019, President Donald Trump appointed Walz to the bipartisan Council of Governors; in 2021 President Joe Biden appointed Walz as a co-chairman of the Council of Governors. In 2023, Walz was named chair of the Democratic Governors Association, a high-profile position that involves supporting other governors in tight races. He stepped down after being selected as Kamala Harris's running mate. Kansas governor Laura Kelly succeeded him as chair.
On May 26, 2020, the day after the murder of George Floyd, Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan demanded justice and called the video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck "disturbing". Walz elaborated, "The lack of humanity in this disturbing video is sickening. We will get answers and seek justice".
In response to riots in Minnesota, Walz partially activated the Minnesota National Guard on May 28, and fully activated it on May 30. President Trump reacted to Walz's actions by saying that he was "very happy" and that he did "fully agree with the way [Walz] handled it ... what [the Minnesota National Guard] did in Minneapolis was incredible". Trump called Walz an "excellent guy". Trump also publicly claimed credit for deploying the Minnesota National Guard; Walz's office said Trump had no impact on Walz's deployments of the Guard.
Several Republicans criticized Walz's initial response to the widespread protests following Floyd's murder. He later responded to the murder by ordering the Minnesota legislature to reconvene for special sessions on legislation for police reform and accountability. After police reform failed to pass the first special session in June, a second special session was held in July. On July 21, the legislature passed police reform legislation. The compromise law includes a limited ban on police from using chokeholds.
It bans "warrior training", which dehumanized people, and includes training for peace officers for dealing with people with autism or in a mental health crisis and de-escalation training for situations that could turn volatile. It also created a special independent unit at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for investigations of fatal police encounters and a community relations advisory council to consult with the Police Officers Standards and Training Board on policy changes. Walz signed the legislation into law on July 23, 2020.
On March 25, 2020, Walz issued a two-week stay-at-home order and extended closures of all "non-essential" businesses. At the time, Department of Employment and Economic Development commissioner Steve Grove estimated 28% of Minnesotans would be jobless and 39% of them would not be eligible for paid leave. Outdoor activities such as fishing, boating, and hunting were banned until April 17. The easing of restrictions coincided with protests and pressure from President Trump.
In May 2025, Walz called the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency under President Trump a "modern-day Gestapo". After the killing of Renée Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Walz criticized Trump further, along with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. It has been reported that Trump is deploying ICE agents to Minnesota not only to gain influence over the state, but also because of his personal disdain for Walz, whom Trump spread conspiracy theories about after taking office.
In January 2026, while criticizing federal ICE raids after the killings of Good and Alex Pretti, Walz compared children fearful of immigration enforcement in Minnesota to Anne Frank, saying that future generations might write "that story about Minnesota". The remarks drew criticism from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which said that comparing contemporary political disputes to Frank's experience was a false equivalence. Other Jewish leaders defended Walz's comments, arguing that he was referring to the fear immigrant children experienced rather than equating their circumstances with the Holocaust. In March, literary critic Ruth Franklin signed a copy of her book The Many Lives of Anne Frank for Walz at a SWAN Day event hosted by Jan Lisa Huttner. Huttner said: Governor Walz spoke only about what Anne Frank did write about (meaning what is actually in her diary), and I sincerely believe that what he said is true: "We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody is going to write that children's story about Minnesota."
In January 2023, Walz signed the Protect Reproductive Options Act, which protects access to reproductive health care including abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments in Minnesota. Abortion is legal at all stages of pregnancy in Minnesota. 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, and cut funding for crisis pregnancy centers, organizations established by anti-abortion groups primarily to persuade pregnant women not to have abortions that often share inaccurate or misleading medical information.
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. "As I sign this legislation, communities from one end of our state to the other are looking at months of rebuilding after an extreme weather event exacerbated by climate change", Walz said in June, after catastrophic flooding devastated parts of the state. "This is a measure that will help protect our environment and get the clean energy projects that are going to help fight climate change in motion."
Walz implemented California's stricter tailpipe emissions standards for cars and set a goal of 20% electric vehicles as a share of all cars in Minnesota by 2030. Some environmentalists have criticized the state government for a lax approach to regulatory capture in the agricultural and iron processing sectors.
In 2023, Walz signed a bipartisan $2.6 billion infrastructure spending package that funded numerous union construction jobs focused on repairing roads, bridges, and other essential infrastructure. Other projects funded included a new fire hall in Dilworth, Minnesota, a water treatment plant in Mankato, and $78 million for the state veterans' home in Hastings, Minnesota. 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.
In May 2024, Walz signed and implemented a bipartisan energy permitting reform bill. Some environmentalists criticized him for fast-tracking the expansion of the Line 3 pipeline and overseeing a vigorous response to the indigenous-led Stop Line 3 protests, marked by allegations of police brutality.
The omnibus commerce bill Walz signed into law in May 2024 contained provisions rescinding the state's longstanding restrictions on the establishment of publicly owned municipal broadband networks by local governments, eliminating a century-old requirement that municipal telecommunications networks be approved in an election with 65% of the vote that had been later interpreted to regulate the creation of community broadband, and liberalizing rules that limited the circumstances in which municipalities may create community broadband networks.
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States began. Schools closed in Minnesota, and Walz was cautious about reopening them, reflecting the concerns of teachers, who were hesitant to return to in-person learning. According to Nat Malkus of the American Enterprise Institute, Minnesota schools remained remote longer than the national average during the 2020–21 school year. Malkus ranked Minnesota 19th out of 50 states for the duration of remote learning, adjusted for student enrollment. Between 2017 and 2022, Minnesota fourth-graders' test scores decreased from 10 points above the national average to 4 points above.
In 2023, Walz and the state legislature approved increased spending on K-12 and early education. 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. The bill also linked state education funding to inflation, addressing a long-standing request by school administrators. With the package, Walz helped make permanent a funding program to supplement child care worker wages by $316 million. He signed a bill that gave all students free school meals regardless of income.
Also in 2023, Walz signed into law the Minnesota Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act (the READ Act), with the goal to have "every Minnesota child reading at or above grade level every year, beginning in kindergarten, and to support multilingual learners and students receiving special education services in achieving their individualized reading goals."
In August 2024, Walz had announced nearly $10 million to support Minnesota's special education workforce with The Education Pipeline grants, awarded by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). The program will support and train special education teachers in over 35 districts, charter schools, and cooperatives. Walz said:As a former classroom teacher for over 20 years, I understand the impact a dedicated teacher can have on their students' lives. By investing in our special education workforce, we can help ensure every student in Minnesota receives the support they need to thrive in their education.
Walz advocated for the legalization of recreational cannabis as governor of Minnesota. As a candidate for governor in 2017, he said: "We have an opportunity in Minnesota to replace the current failed policy with one that creates tax revenue, grows jobs, builds opportunities for Minnesotans, protects Minnesota kids, and trusts adults to make personal decisions based on their personal freedoms." In 2022, he proposed the creation of a Cannabis Management Office to develop and implement the "regulatory framework for adult-use cannabis" in Minnesota. On May 30, 2023, he signed into law House File 100 to legalize recreational cannabis in Minnesota, which went into effect on August 1, 2023.
In June 2024, Walz signed the Minnesota Debt Fairness Act. Among other things, the act prevents health care providers from denying medically necessary treatment because of outstanding medical debt and prevents medical debt from affecting credit scores.
In 2019, Walz issued Executive Order 19-24, which requires state agencies to create and implement tribal consultation policies to guide their interaction with tribal nations in Minnesota. In November 2021, he signed the "Government to Government Relationship with Tribal Governments" bill, which codified the order into state law. In 2022, Walz appointed attorney Tadd Johnson to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, the first Native American appointed to the board since it was established.
In August 2023, Walz signed an education bill that included education of Indigenous cultural heritage for all students. In September, he signed the return of parts of Upper Sioux Agency State Park land to the Upper Sioux Community. In December, Walz became the first Minnesota governor to visit all 11 tribal nations in the state. 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.
The 93rd Minnesota Legislature, in session from January 2023 to May 2024, was the first legislature to be fully Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party-controlled since the 88th Minnesota Legislature in 2013–2015. It passed several major reforms to Minnesota law, including requiring paid leave, banning noncompete agreements, cannabis legalization, and environmental issues, tax modifications, codifying abortion rights, universal free school meals, and universal gun background checks.
The Star Tribune called the session "one of the most consequential" ever in Minnesota; Walz called it the "most productive session in Minnesota history". While Walz signed almost all legislation passed by the legislature, he vetoed a bill intended to increase pay for rideshare drivers, his first veto as governor, saying that it did not strike the right balance.
In February 2019, Walz endorsed the candidacy of Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota's senior U.S. senator, in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. In August 2020, he endorsed the candidacy of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris. 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." In July 2024, Walz was among 20 Democratic governors who met with Biden at the White House after the first presidential debate. Walz said the debate was a "bad hit" for Biden's campaign.
A series of fraud scandals occurred between 2020 and 2025 that affected Walz politically.
In 2022, federal prosecutors filed charges against the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which received federal funding to distribute meals to children. Prosecutors said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Feeding Our Future had committed fraud worth over $250 million, submitting fraudulent meal sheets in order to receive funding. Several defendants, including the nonprofit's founder, were later found guilty.
It was later reported that the Minnesota Department of Education, which was responsible for distributing funds, had found irregularities in the group's paperwork as early as 2020. Following initial rejections, Feeding Our Future sued the agency and threatened to accuse it of racism (the agency mainly catered to the state's large Somali American population). The agency then resumed funding. A report by the nonpartisan state legislative auditor's office later found that the threats had affected the agency's judgment, and an investigator from the state's fraud investigation office (who was himself Somali) said that concerns over being portrayed as racist made the Walz administration reluctant to pursue fraud allegations. In January 2025, Walz announced a task force to combat fraud, saying that his administration "had a culture of being a little too trusting".
In November 2025, The New York Times reported that federal prosecutors had found more than $1 billion of fraud in three separate schemes. Walz faced criticism, with the editorial board of The Washington Post accusing him of "refusing to take accountability".
In response, President Trump signaled an interest in increasing his deportation efforts in the state by focusing on Somali immigrants. Since the scandal, political analyst Ember Reichgott Junge has said that Walz's reelection (and potential future presidential) prospects have dimmed. Polling conducted after the scandal showed Walz's approval rating at its lowest since the beginning of his second term.
In December 2025, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI began investigating fraud by Minnesota daycare centers after a video by YouTuber Nick Shirley. None of the video's allegations were immediately confirmed. Following this national attention, members of the Minnesota Legislature's Republican caucus called on Walz to resign. He responded by saying that he had "strengthened oversight", citing his creation of an anti-fraud task force and investigations already launched by his office into several sites, including one featured in Shirley's video.
On January 14, 2026, articles of impeachment were filed against Walz due to the fraud scandals uncovered in late 2025.