Kamala Harris’s 2024 vice presidential running mate, Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), has been nothing short of a disaster for his state’s economy. Minnesotans living under Walz’s leadership have suffered:

• GDP growth less than HALF that of the Biden-Harris economy at large;
• Energy costs near 30% higher than the national average;
• A massive net outflow of taxpayers fleeing the state.

While most of the election cycle has focused on the Biden-Harris government’s lackluster economy, high inflation, high interest rates, the border crisis, and rising concerns of a recession—a look at Walz’s economic vision should raise even more alarm bells regarding what a Harris-Walz government might do.

The National Pulse has produced an analysis of the Walz economy in Minnesota, looking at several core factors, including its growth prospects, the impact of Walz’s environmentalist policies, and whether taxpayers and businesses have decided to remain in the state as a result.

LACKLUSTER GDP GROWTH.

In 2023, Minnesota’s annual state GDP growth ranked 43rd in the country. Over the course of last year, the state’s economy only grew at a minuscule rate of 1.2 percent from 2022. This was nearly twice as slow as the national Biden-Harris economy, which saw annualized growth at 2.5 percent.

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce notes that despite the overall U.S. recovery post-COVID-19 pandemic—itself hampered by the high-inflationary policies of the Biden-Harris government—the state’s recovery has lagged even further behind. According to the Chamber, “…the state recovered and grew at just half the rate of the U.S. and ranked in the bottom 20 states across most major economic growth indicators.”

JOB-KILLING GREEN POLICIES.

Energy policy analysts Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling produced an interesting look at the impact Gov. Walz’s radical environmentalist agenda has had on the critical manufacturing industry in Minnesota. They found that Walz’s green-energy mandate has caused industrial electricity rates in the state to outpace the U.S. average far. In fact, the cost of power has become so severe, it has forced companies to actually close shop entirely.

On March 1 of this year, Metal Technologies Incorporated (MTI) was forced to close its foundry facilities in Hibbing, Minnesota, due to the prohibitive cost of energy in the state. “Electricity cost is a major expense,” MTI said in a press release announcing the closure. The Indiana-based company with facilities across the Midwest continued: ” Minnesota Power’s repeated electricity rate increases … mean Northern Foundry pays substantially more per kilowatt hour than MTI’s other facilities.”

The analysis by Orr and Rolling shows that Minnesota Power, the electricity provider for the region where Hibbing is located, saw industrial electricity rates 27 percent higher than the U.S. average in 2023. They estimate that the Northern Foundry facility likely used over 30,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity annually—primarily to power electric induction furnaces used for melting iron. Orr and Rolling estimated that the overall rise in power costs meant the company faced around a $1.2 million electric bill—about 27 percent of its payroll.

Around 100 members of the United Steel Workers lost their jobs in the closure of the Northern Foundry facility.

At the root of Minnesota‘s energy problem is Gov. Walz. Since taking office, the Democrat has exacerbated the issue of energy costs by mandating unreliable and expensive green energy use. In 2023, Walz championed and signed into law one of the most radical environmentalist bills in the country. The Democrat governor and now vice presidential candidate is requiring Minnesota’s electricity generation to be entirely carbon-free by 2040—meaning that industrial rates will only become more prohibitively high for manufacturers.

When Walz first took office as governor in 2019, he quickly established a climate crisis advisory board. Over the last four years, that group and Walz put together a job-killing plan that would slash emissions in the state in half by 2030. The plan also calls for boosting electric car use by over 20 percent. So far, Walz has not explained how he’ll convince more Minnesotans to drive electric vehicles, with electricity rates becoming prohibitively high.

FLEEING GOV. WALZ’S MINNESOTA.

Walz’s tenure as Governor of Minnesota has been nothing short of a disaster for the state, and residents seem to know it. Since he took office in 2019, the state has ranked in the bottom half of the country for net migration. In fact, Minnesota has consistently seen net out-migration, with taxpayers leaving the state in droves. From 2019 to 2023, Minnesota had a net outflow of residents, ranking worse than 35 out of 50 states.

During the first three years of Walz‘s government, Minnesota lost over $600 million in taxpayer income to neighboring Wisconsin. This stunning loss of capital was caused by the flight of at least 8,000 residents—on the net—into the neighboring Midwest state. The net income loss on average per taxpayer who left the state was $75,000.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Minnesota’s largest county lost 50,000 people to out-migration over the last three years. Hennepin County’s 1.3 million people comprise nearly a fifth of Minnesota’s total population, with most residents concentrated around Minneapolis.

HARRIS-WALZ: ECONOMY KILLERS. 

Gov. Walz‘s poor economy in Minnesota mirrors many of the weaknesses we see nationally under the Biden-Harris government. The data on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s energy and economic policies suggests that should the two take the White House in November, there would be little hope for relief from high costs and lagging job growth.

Much like Bidenomics, Kamalanomics and Walzian environmentalism will only constrain economic growth and make the manufacturing comeback—including the restoring of American jobs that former President Donald J. Trump has called for—likely impossible.

Image credit Lorie Shaull