Tim Walz, lame-duck governor of Minnesota and former Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has managed to become less popular in his own state than Donald Trump. That sentence is not a typo. According to a new Mason-Dixon poll conducted for KARE 11, the Minnesota Star Tribune, and the University of Minnesota, Walz sits at 39% approval while Trump clocks in at 41% in a state Joe Biden won by seven points in 2020.
The Numbers Are as Bad as They Look
The Mason-Dixon poll surveyed 800 likely Minnesota voters between June 8 and 10, and the results are ugly across the board. Eight hundred respondents is not a massive sample size, and any honest pollster will tell you the margin of error on a poll this size runs around plus or minus 3.5 points, which means the gap between Walz and Trump is real but not exactly a Grand Canyon. Still, Walz at 39% approval and 53% disapproval is his lowest rating in six years of governing, and you don't need a statistics degree to recognize that trend line is going the wrong direction.
He announced back in January that he won't seek re-election, so these aren't just midterm jitters. He's already on his way out and still managed to crater. Only 32% of independents approve of Walz, and a full 73% of Democrats still back him, which is actually the more alarming number when you consider how hard you have to work to lose the other 27% of your own party. One percent of Republicans approve. One. That's not a political coalition, that's a rounding error.
The Fraud Scandal That Swallowed Everything
The source of Walz's collapse isn't mysterious. Minnesota has been at the center of what investigators describe as one of the largest federal nutrition program fraud schemes in American history, involving hundreds of millions in misspent funds from a pandemic-era child feeding program. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has alleged that Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison ignored whistleblower warnings early on and let the fraud balloon, partly out of fear of being accused of racism for scrutinizing programs heavily used by the Somali immigrant community.
The Trump administration deployed a fraud task force into the state over the past year, resulting in raids, arrests, and a sprawling federal investigation. The final state fraud report, according to Fox News, ripped what it called a "culture of tolerance" inside state government. A previous investigation estimated Minnesota taxpayers could be looking at billions in alleged losses. Walz testified before the House Oversight Committee back in March. It was not a good look.
On the question of who voters trust to fix the fraud, 45% said Republicans, 38% said Democrats, and 14% said neither. That's a damning split for a Democrat running a state government that was in charge when the whole thing fell apart.
Lame Duck Walking Through a Crime Scene
Walz announced in January that he would not run for re-election as governor. At the time, some read it as a graceful exit after a bruising 2024 presidential campaign where he served as Kamala Harris's running mate on the losing ticket. With the benefit of hindsight, it looks less like a graceful exit and more like a man who could read a spreadsheet.
His approval has dropped ten points since last year, tracking almost perfectly with the escalating fraud coverage. The fraud crisis didn't just hurt Walz politically. It handed Republicans a concrete, visceral, endlessly repeatable story about Democratic governance: money meant to feed kids, gone. Officials warned, ignored. Whistleblowers reportedly retaliated against. That's not spin. That's a prosecutorial narrative, and it's been playing out in front of a congressional committee for months.
The Flag That Nobody Asked For
Because this story wasn't strange enough, the poll also reveals that 50% of Minnesota voters disapprove of the state's new flag, which Walz supported. The flag was designed by a 13-member commission created by the Democratic-controlled legislature in 2023 and replaced the state's old flag. Critics have called it bland and, in the most politically incendiary framing, noted that it bears a passing resemblance to Somalia's national flag.
Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota's 6th Congressional District, told Fox News Digital that the flag is "an embarrassment" and praised cities that have removed it from their buildings. Whether the flag criticism is entirely fair or mostly a political cudgel being used alongside the fraud issue is a legitimate question. What is not debatable is that Walz is now losing the vibes war on multiple fronts simultaneously, which is a special kind of political hell to be in during your final months in office.
Republicans Pile On, Because Of Course They Do
Republican state officials were not exactly measured in their response to the poll. Minnesota State Sen. Michael Holmstrom told Fox News Digital that Walz "could soon be the most popular guy in the jailhouse," which is a pretty extraordinary thing for a sitting state senator to say publicly about a sitting governor, even by current standards.
State Sen. Mark Koran told Fox News that Walz "let his fraud crisis blow up and didn't do anything to fix it" while pursuing what Koran called "radical stuff" in state government. These are Republicans talking, so the characterization of Democratic policy as radical is not exactly a surprise. But the fraud piece gives them something real to attach that rhetoric to, which is the part that actually stings. Fox News Digital reports it reached out to Walz's office for comment. His office did not respond.
The Dingo Take
Here's the thing about a politician becoming less popular in their home state than the guy who lost that state by seven points: it doesn't happen by accident. You have to earn that. You have to have a sprawling fraud scandal, congressional hearings, federal raids, and a final report using phrases like "culture of tolerance" to describe your administration's response to whistleblowers warning you that hundreds of millions in federal nutrition money was disappearing. That's not bad luck. That's a years-long institutional failure that landed on Walz's desk and apparently stayed there while he was busy doing other things.
To be clear, the Republican operatives celebrating this poll are not suddenly the heroes of the story. Emmer's comments about "Somali fraudsters" are the kind of language that signals very clearly what this political moment is being used for beyond accountability. The fraud investigation involves real alleged crimes that deserve real prosecution. It does not require elected officials to paint an entire immigrant community with a broad brush to score points, and the eagerness with which some are doing exactly that tells you something about their actual priorities.
But none of that lets Walz off the hook. He had warnings. He had whistleblowers. He had a scandal metastasizing inside his own government and, by most accounts, his administration treated the people sounding the alarm worse than the people allegedly committing the fraud. At 39% approval with seven months left in office, Minnesota voters have rendered a verdict on that choice. It's a rough way to end a career that, twelve months ago, almost included the vice presidency.
