Report: Tim Walz Considering Running for Tina Smith’s Senate Seat
Smith announced she would not seek reelection in 2026.
Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) announced she would not run for reelection in 2026 after 23 years in the chamber.
Smith took over when Al Franken resigned and won reelection in 2020 by five points.
Politico reported that failed Democrat VP candidate Gov. Tim Walz might run for her seat.
The information came from “a person close to the governor.” Politico “granted anonymity” to the person.
Walz’s office did not provide a comment.
Smith put out a video to explain her decision:
I wanted you to hear directly from me that I have decided not to run for reelection to the United States Senate in 2026. I have loved my job as United States senator and also after 20 years of hard and rewarding work in the public sector, I’m ready to spend more time with my family.
You know, when I first came to the senate, I didn’t have any grandchildren, and now, Archie and I have four, and our sons, Sam and Mason, and daughters in law, Emily and Julia are now all living in Minneapolis so we can be together. My father is going to be turning 95 this summer, and I am blessed to have a large extended family of siblings and nieces and nephews, and one of my great joys is to know that I have time to spend more time with them, doing sleepovers and helping out from time to time when the kids need me.
So this decision is not political. It is entirely personal.
But it’s not lost on me that our country is in need of strong, progressive leadership right now, maybe more than ever. So there are two things on my mind about this. The first is that I have nearly two full years left in my Senate term, and I plan to use every single day, working as hard as I can to represent your interests in the United States Senate and make sure that your voices are heard. And also, since I don’t have to worry about running an election, a reelection campaign, I can focus entirely on this job right now. And second, we have a deep bench of political talent in Minnesota, a group of leaders that are more than ready to pick up the work and carry us forward. And I’m excited to make room for them to move forward.
At the end of the day, what I’m going to miss most about this job is not the perks and certainly not all of the attention. It’s going to be that feeling that I have from all of you being invited into your living rooms to hear what is happening in your lives and what that’s really like for you. That has been an inspiration to me every single day that I’ve served so I’m grateful for that. And I’m going to spend the next two years figuring out how to thank you all.
So thank you so much, Minnesota.
I’ve decided not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2026.
This job has been the honor of a lifetime. For the rest of my term, I’ll work as hard as I can for Minnesotans and our country.
Thank you so much, Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/3sWVib8nKJ
— Senator Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) February 13, 2025
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Comments
For an article purportedly about Walz, there’s not a lot of Walz in here.
There is not a lot to Walz once your past the lies.
There’s not a lot about Walz to put in here.
.
He ran to Kamala with open arms.
They sang in the sunshine
You know they laughed every day
They sang in the sunshine
Then he went on his way
Now he’s looking for another…
easy peasy position.
So are Minnesota U.S. Representatives Ilhan Omar and Angie Craig. See,
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/13/ilhan-omar-senate-tina-smith-minnesota
And Walz’s own Lt governor.
I’m going to get chicago mix popcorn (butter/cheese/caramel mix) cuz this is going to be fun to watch.
You may have a deep slate of talent in Minnesota, but it’s not in the Democratic party
My guess is Dean Phillips will run for Tina’s seat. What would be awesome is if he changed his party affiliation to Republican, and should Trump endorse Dean, he would crush Walz, Omar, or any other Democrat.
I see that picture and I hear,
The hills are alive . 
Senator Jazz Hands. The memes write themselves but seriously, how does he think he will escape the Feeding corruption trial that is taking place in MN right now?
Walz may have been kneecapped already, because the Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, announced on social media that she’s planning to run and will be making it official in the next couple weeks. If the MN political gossip circuit is correct, the relationship between the two of them is a bit strained, resulting from how he thought she was overstepping her bounds when he was busy running for VP. As in, she tried to take over.
Your going to have to explain how that kneecaps him. He is term limited out of office which is why he is looking at the Senate seat. I’m not sure Flanagan has a large enough following to impede Walz in any way.
We don’t have term limits on governor here in North California (sadly), so Walz can run again if he wants.
Time to flip that to a Republican MAGA seat
This is Minnesota. Not happening.
I disagree. Why not? It can happen. I know the state well. I lived there for 15 years. The Iron Range is turning red, and Minnesotans detest Walz with passion.
Much as I hate to agree with the resident troll I am forced by the facts to admit that Milhouse is actually correct for once. My wife and I are political and economic refugees from the Soviet Socialist State of Minnesota, but we both grew up there, and lived and worked there for more than 60 years.
While the rural areas of MN (outside the 494/694 ring-road that encircles the Hive™) are solidly conservative, they have no voice what-so-ever in the politics of the state. It is solidly run by the collectivist corruptocrats in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. They are typically joined by the socialist/unionists in Duluth and the Range, and by their brethren in Rochester.
With “Republicans” in the state that look like Democrats anywhere else in the country, and with the massive vote fraud engendered by the Dem-wing in that state (personally witnessed by myself) there is almost zero chance of a MN Republican taking the governor’s office from the Dems.
This conclusively proves that Dem-wingers are dumber than flatworms, since even a flatworm will turn away from pain.
MN voters might be able to elect a GoP candidate. Their State House is roughly 50/50. Given the left leaning tendencies of the electorate any GoP candidate with a realistic chance to win isn’t gonna be a fire breathing MAGA/MAHA sort. We should be willing to accept that fact and see if we can assist to gain a Senate seat, assuming the GoP candidate isn’t a loon or a total sell out.
The last GOP senator was Norm Coleman from 2003-2009 and he won because the very popular Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash and the infamous funeral followed. Mondale was parachuted in but it didn’t work. Norm lasted one term before being defeated by Al Franken in a disputed race, and Tina Smith got the job when Al was forced out (she ran in 2020 and won on her own accord).
MN has a problem which exists in a bunch of other states: Large, very blue metro area overwhelms the rest of the state, which is very red and much less-densely populated. Any statewide GOP candidate has to significantly overperform in the red areas and hope turnout in the Twin Cities, as well as Rochester (Mayo Clinic) and the counties in the “spear” (Duluth and to the north and east), underperforms.
Regardless, any GOP candidate will be labeled a right-wing extremist even if he or she is a moderate. The guy who lost to Amy Klobuchar by 16 points in November has already said he’ll run again.
The state House came out of the recent election 67-67, but that’s because the Dem seats are very Dem, while the Rep seats aren’t that Rep. Overall the state has a large Dem majority.
No, it did not. I’ll refer you to Powerline for a very good rundown out of what is going on in the Statehouse in regards to the lawless Democrats and the State Supreme Court ignoring the State Constitution. The Republicans have a 1 seat majority until the next special election to fill the seat of a Democrat that was illegally elected as he did not live in the district he ran in leaving the seat open which caused Walz to try and jam a special election in against state law. He was stopped by the courts and had to issue another order which followed the law.
Another idiot heard from.
The House came out of the election with a 67-67 tie.
One Dem was then disqualified, making it 67-66. Dems threw a fit. That all happened after the election.
The fact remains that 67 districts voted Dem. And those 67 districts are more heavily Dem than the other 67 are Rep. Overall the Dems have a large majority in the state.
Yep, that’s the point I was making; a successful GoP candidate for US Senate in MN is gonna be far closer to the center/left/moderate policy preferences of Sen Collins than the libertarian policy preferences of Sen Paul. Running for a Statewide office as a full throated right wing MAGA supporter probably isn’t gonna get someone elected in MN.
Tim Lolz
In 2026, Trump will be well past the early days and will be more popular than ever, or embroiled in some mess or another.
Oh, is he running to put tampons in the men’s rooms on Capitol hill?
Minnesotans probably like that.
I still am waiting for someone to ask Timmy if he really does have a tattoo on his upper thigh?
Poor MN.