Minnesota governor jokes that residents should ‘go get vaccinated so you’re alive to vote against me’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) joked during a meeting with President Biden and other governors that state residents should “go get vaccinated so you’re alive to vote against me in the next election.” 

“My message to folks is there’s a lot of good reasons to get vaccinated, but for some of them, you know, if you need another one, go get vaccinated so you’re alive to vote against me in the next election,” Walz joked Tuesday. “I don’t care. I just want to get it done.”

During the meeting, Walz touted Minnesota’s voter turnout and rate of census returns in last year’s count, arguing that the state was taking a similar approach by deploying “trusted partners” in individual communities to urge residents to get their COVID-19 vaccination.

“It’s not assuming these people are hesitant, they’re ideologically opposed. It’s trying to understand where they’re at, what are the differences. Some are going to respond differently to different groups,” Walz said, pointing to previous information efforts among sovereign tribal nations in the state, poultry production employees and more.  

He also noted that he got vaccinated alongside former GOP Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty in a show of bipartisanship to bring Minnesota residents together.

States across the country have seen demand for COVID-19 vaccines slow amid the ongoing pandemic. Over the past week, an average of 2.12 million vaccine doses were administered per day across the country, a 7 percent decrease over the week before, according to The Washington Post.

In Minnesota, at least 2,667,770 residents have received at least one vaccine dose.