Trump Campaign Attacks Tim Walz for Allowing “Convicted Felons to Vote”

Donald TrumpThe ‘waste no time Tuesday’ campaign is pursuing Kamala HarrisMinnesota Governor’s New Running Mate Announced Tim Walz. Though perhaps an extra beat or two might have given the group time to make a stronger attack argument than the argument for allowing convicted felons to vote—which seems a bit odd considering the Republican top ticket!

That’s right, in a statement released shortly after the Walz news broke, a Trump campaign spokesperson condemned the governor for “implementing policies that allow convicted felons to vote.” As a reminder, Donald Trump was convicted of 34 counts last May, making him—you guessed it—a convicted felon.

Interestingly, unless he is actually in prison at the time of the November election, Trump will be allowed to vote, because voting laws in Florida, where he resides, allow residents convicted of crimes in other states to vote if the state where they were convicted allows them to do so. Since New York, where Trump was convicted, allows anyone to vote as long as they are not serving a prison sentence, Trump could vote in the fall.

In addition to owning up to the vote, the Trump campaign also criticized Walz for “proposing his own zero-carbon agenda” and “suggesting stricter emissions standards for gasoline-powered cars,” all of which Team Trump claimed were part of the governor’s plot to “reshape Minnesota in the image” of California, which is a dirty word in Republican circles. The campaign also referenced a 2017 quote from Walz in which he said his state’s rural areas were “mostly rocks and cows.” (It seems unlikely that Trump, who grew up in New York and became a millionaire at age 8 thanks to his father’s real estate empire, will be able to demonstrate that he understands rural America better than the Nebraska-born Walz, but he’s clearly going to try!)

For his part, Walz appears to have gotten the nod from Harris for policies that appeal to progressive and working-class voters, though he may have sealed the deal by going on TV and calling MAGA Republicans total wackos. Last month, he told CNN of Trump: “Listen to that guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shock sharks and whatever crazy thing comes to his mind.… It’s bizarre behavior.”