Tim Walz’s com­pli­cat­ed record on crime comes back to haunt him

Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Harris’s deci­sion to pick the Min­neso­ta gov­er­nor as her run­ning mate on Tues­day renewed crit­i­cisms from Repub­li­cans about Tim Walz’s record on crime after his state spawned nation­wide riots, loot­ing, and calls to defund the police in 2020.
Min­neso­ta saw an alarm­ing crime wave begin­ning in 2018 that surged through 2021, dipped slight­ly in 2022, and then dipped again in 2023, accord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary state data released this year. Mean­while, Walz, who has been in office since 2019, has had mixed respons­es to law enforce­ment in his state.
While he did not endorse the defund the police move­ment that began in 2020, he expressed sym­pa­thy for riot­ers who rav­aged Min­neapo­lis, destroy­ing small busi­ness­es and burn­ing dozens of build­ings to the ground, in the after­math of George Floyd’s mur­der.
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