Tim Walz paints two Americas when southern-frying Iowa

9/4/2024

A modern political Mason-Dixon line appears to be taking form north of Mason City and south of Albert Lea — somewhere around the Minnesota-Iowa border.

The crash of cultures is no accident. And now, the increasing divide will be exposed (and expanded, most likely) under a national spotlight in which Iowa and Minnesota are prime exhibits in what the still-living, but politically late John Edwards would have called the “Two Americas” conversation. Few leaders within an afternoon’s drive from each other have such starkly opposing views and agendas on American life and government than Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. If Iowa and Minnesota were the only states in the union, one would surely secede.

The leadership and cultures of the states, once friendly rivals, are now divided by a canyon-leap of differences — so much so that the Democratic candidate for vice president, Walz, has referred to Iowa as a southern state in a dismissive way as, almost simultaneously, fellow governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Republican Reynolds’ favored candidate for the Oval Office, earned applause in northwest Iowa for describing Iowa as the Florida of the north, a culturally southern state with northern weather.

Here is Walz:

“I mention coming down to Iowa, which we commonly refer to as the Deep South for Minnesota,” Walz said at a news conference in Iowa last summer.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has compared Walz to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Walz, to be fair, has had Iowa’s back.

“I personally wish we would have stayed in Iowa,” Walz has said of the first-in-the-nation status for the Democratic Iowa caucuses in the presidential nominating process.

He’s a Nebraska native and Minnesotan so it’s, well, understandable that Walz is comfortable with Iowa jokes. And with the state of Iowa not in play for the presidential election, he could draw more contrasts in the final months of the campaign — notably on abortion and vouchers for private schools, issues on which former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin says Democrats at all levels can gain ground in rural areas.

The jokes and jabs could, though, cut deeper than the tried-and-tired and good-natured ditties like: “What’s the best thing to come out of Minnesota?”

Punchline: “Interstate 35.”

That’s Iowa Nice.

Walz has been quick to highlight distinctions between Iowa and Minnesota, notably on the states’ handling of abortion. Iowa law now bans abortion after six weeks, a point at which many women don’t know they are pregnant.

I covered Walz at a Nebraska Democratic Party dinner in Omaha last fall, at the downtown Marriott, where half the guests or more can see Iowa from their rooms across the Missouri River.

Early in his keynote speech, Walz lit up Iowa. At the time, I began to wonder if state officials from Iowa and Minnesota would begin to more openly attempt to poach residents based on politics. One top Iowa state official told me on deep background to expect such engagement between the states.

Walz, during his Omaha speech, noted Minnesota has a longer streak of voting for Democratic presidents than any other state. Democrats have not lost statewide elections since 2006, but there have been close calls, he said.

“We were 8,000 votes away in a state of 6 million from becoming the next Iowa or Wisconsin where they would have destroyed us,” he said.

Walz talked of his Nebraska upbringing and time as a teacher and Army National Guardsman. His roots are indisputably rural — in Nebraska.

“I said it’s a Minnesota adage, but it came from my time in Nebraska: ‘And that’s mind your own damned business on things,’ ” Walz said in the Omaha speech.

Walz’s folksy style and ability to salt his speech with Nebraska historical and cultural (and sports) references endeared him to the crowd. He could play a role in helping the ticket capture one crucial Electoral College vote in Nebraska as the Cornhusker State awards electors statewide and then separately from each of the three congressional districts. Nebraska CD2, which includes Omaha, is widely seen as in play in the national election. ♦

Douglas Burns of Carroll is fourth-generation journalist and founder of Mercury Boost, a marketing and public relations company.