Tim Walz Does a Town Hall Because Local Congressman Won't

At the largest gathering of DFLers in Rochester in years, Governor Tim Walz did a town hall on March 22 at John Marshall High School. Our Congressman hasn’t been willing to do an in-person town hall in Rochester since he was elected in 2022, so Walz, who had Finstad’s job from 2007-2019 before becoming Governor, decided he would come back to the First Congressional District and listen to voters. The event was sponsored by the DFL, but there were no political restrictions on who could attend.

The town hall came together quickly. Four days before the event, Walz’s staff let DFLers in Rochester know he could do a town hall that Saturday morning. Planning for the event, shared between local DFLers, Walz campaign staff and Minnesota DFL staff, started immediately and moved at a rapid pace. The original plan was to hold it at Century High School, but within a day after registration opened on March 19, far more people than could fit in the Century Auditorium had registered for the town hall, so it was moved to the John Marshall auditorium, which is twice as big. A call for volunteers to help staff the event also quickly yielded more people than were needed. Organizers finally had to close registration on Friday afternoon when more people had registered than could be accommodated in the auditorium and overflow space at John Marshall.

Walz arrived at the school around 9:30 Saturday morning and met with reporters. After spending some time greeting the event volunteers, he and First Lady Gwen Walz came on stage to a standing ovation at 10:30, joining Caitlin Nicholson, chair of the 1st Congressional District DFL, the town hall’s moderator. The main floor of the auditorium was full and people were standing in the back. An overflow room with a monitor so people who came too late for a seat in the auditorium could see and hear the event was also full.

Walz spoke briefly about town halls he had done recently in other states and reminisced about how he had been on the same stage in 2009 doing a town hall when the Affordable Care act was being considered in Congress. He said the crowd then had been less friendly than the one today.  He then answered questions submitted by audience members for the rest of the hour. At the end of the hour he and Gwen reminded people that the antidote to despair was action and called on those present to go out and do something to help bring the country back to the right path.

Once he left the stage, he spoke to local legislators who had attended and to the event volunteers before going to John Hardy’s for lunch and heading out of town for another town hall later that day.