Can Walz win a third term? A longtime political reporter and columnist weighs in
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Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich was the first and only governor in Minnesota history to attempt three consecutive, four-year terms. Until now.
“This makes Tim Walz only the second,” Lori Sturdevant said.
Sturdevant has been writing on Minnesota’s political landscape since Al Quie held the office. That’s 43 years and six governors ago. Now she’s an author and a columnist with the Minnesota Star Tribune.
She said the governorship has sort of always been viewed as a temp job in Minnesota. And as history has repeatedly shown, the state hasn’t been keen on keeping their governors in office for more than eight years.
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Perpich served for 10 years but under unique circumstances.
If Walz were to win his bid, he would be the first governor in Minnesota history to serve for 12 consecutive years. Sturdevant said Walz’s biggest challenge for his campaign will be overcoming the rural and urban divide, which has deepened since he first took office.
“Walz has not been able to bridge that in an effective way,” Sturdevant said. “You have to sell yourself for a third term, you have to demonstrate that you’ve got something really special to offer.”
You can read a transcript of Sturdevant’s conversation with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer, lightly edited for clarity, below, or listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.
Why is a third term such a hurdle?
Minnesota, I think, has always viewed being governor as kind of a temp job. Until 1962, so for the first 204 years of statehood, governors served two-year terms.
We switched to four year terms in ‘62 ,but since then, only one governor has tried for a third elected term in his own right. That was Rudy Perpich in 1990, and the voters said no.
This makes Tim Walz only the second governor to try for a third, four-year term.
You mentioned former Gov. Perpich. What did he learn about Minnesota voters?
Oh, I think he was not one to talk too much about that defeat. It really did sting him, but a lot of us in the Capitol basement talked a good deal about it at the time, and in the years since.
Rudy was someone who demonstrated that when you serve for a long time in that office, you accumulate quite a record — both for good and for bad. Voters have an expectation in Minnesota, as I said, that the governor is kind of a temp job, and the things that you may have done that disappointed some people tend to accumulate.
You have to sell yourself for a third term. You have to demonstrate that you've got something really special to offer and you have some new direction that you want to bring to the state. Rudy wasn't able to sell that in 1990.
What about former Gov. Tim Pawlenty? What was different about that, if at all?
Well, he didn’t try for a third term. He was thinking about it. There was a lot of speculation that he might do that because he was still a fairly young man, but he opted instead to run for president, and that didn’t work out so well for him.
Didn’t he lose a primary?
He tried for a comeback in 2018, the year that Tim Walz ultimately won and was defeated in the Republican primary.
And that speaks to something: Every time that Rudy Perpich ran in the 1980s, he had a DFL primary opponent and a pretty substantial one, names that we still remember, like George Latimer and Mike Hatch.
Tim Walz doesn't seem to face any primary threat, and that makes him also distinctive at this point.
Retired DFL State House Rep. Gene Pelowski says the Democratic Party has shifted to the left and become a lot more diverse. Do you see that as a potential challenge?
Well, a big challenge for Tim Walz is that during his time as governor, the DFL Party has become even more of an urban party.
He first ran as a former congressman from southern Minnesota and a teacher in Mankato. He ran as someone who had the potential, at least, to try to unify the state across the urban, rural divide, which has been a feature in our politics since statehood.
But that divide seems to have gotten deeper and wider in recent years, and Tim Walz has not been able to bridge that in an effective way. At least judging by the polls that we see, that continues to be a challenge.
Even with our shift to a more urban population, it’s hard to win as someone who's seen as an urban-only candidate and Walz’s challenge is to again be seen as someone who can unite the state.
Correction (Sept. 22, 2025): An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of retired Rep. Gene Pelowski.
