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Wes Samuelson had been thinking about leaving Wyoming for years before he finally loaded his pet tarantula into a car and headed off for good.
He had found the state difficult and unwelcoming as a transgender man, and friends had recommended moving to Minnesota, which was led by a sympathetic Democratic governor by the name of Tim Walz.
Mr Samuelson has now lived in Minnesota for four years, and began a gender transition procedure within months of arriving. “In Wyoming you couldn’t even talk to doctors about it,” he said. “I’ve just been so much happier.”
Beram Compo, Mr Samuelson’s partner, was delighted when Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, selected Mr Walz – someone so “loudly supportive” of trans rights – as her running mate this month.
But his positions are seen as a political weakness by Donald Trump’s campaign, which has painted him as a radical Democrat who poses a threat to women’s safety.
Some Republican operatives claim Mr Walz’s folksy demeanour conceals a hard-Left radicalism that has intensified over the last few years. One says he is trying to turn Minnesota into the “San Francisco of the Midwest.”
Under Mr Walz, Minnesota has become known as a “sanctuary state” for trans people. While more than two dozen states have acted to curb access to gender transitions, he has done the opposite.
In 2023, he put his name to “trans refuge” legislation that barred Minnesota from cooperating with states prosecuting parents who allowed their child to receive puberty-blocking drugs or surgery.
He also signed an executive order guaranteeing access to these procedures in Minnesota, where they are legal for under-18s who have consent from a guardian and health professionals.
The same year, he green-lit laws that provided all school students – including boys – with free menstrual products, and supported a ban on conversion therapy for children and vulnerable adults.
“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender-transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said this week.
“Those are radical policies that Tim Walz supports. He actually signed a bill to do that.”
Mr Walz was a surprise pick as Ms Harris’s running mate and even his neighbours in an upmarket area in the city of Saint Paul seemed to have been taken unawares. One still had a Biden-Harris campaign sign stuck proudly in their well-kempt lawn, more than a week after it became the Harris-Walz campaign.
A sociable Midwesterner equally comfortable chatting about politics or corn dogs, Mr Walz was seen as someone who can keep the Democratic base onside without isolating mainstream voters.
However, Gregg Peppin, a Minnesota-based Republican strategist, claimed his “seed cap and blue jeans” act concealed a Left-wing radical who had divided the state.
“I think reasonable people, independent swing voters, can look at transgender rights and have some degree of support or understanding for that,” Mr Peppin, a former consultant for one of Mr Walz’s defeated congressional opponents, said.
But he added that the governor had gone further and implemented an “extreme progressive agenda”, referring to his trans policies on school-age children.
“He’s vying to be the San Francisco of the Midwest,” Mr Peppin added. “He’s more liberal than [California governor] Gavin Newsom with less hair.”
Children’s Minnesota, a paediatric service, says it has seen a 30 per cent increase in demand as people flocked to the state seeking gender transition surgeries and drugs while other governors clamped down on the practice.
Heather Crawford, mother of transgender teenager Cass, said she would “never stop being grateful” to Mr Walz for guaranteeing access to those procedures.
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Two years ago, the Texas-born paralegal left her home state when its governor, Greg Abbott, announced child abuse investigations would be carried out into families whose children were receiving puberty-blocking treatments.
She headed for Minnesota after researching each state’s legal position on transgender issues, and said Mr Walz was “one of the main reasons” for Minnesota’s appeal. If the family had stayed in Texas, she believes Cass, now 17, would have turned to suicide.
Mr Walz is broadly popular in Minnesota, though locals say he has drifted to the Left since his days as a congressman representing a conservative district as a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association.
Amy Koch, a former Republican leader of Minnesota’s senate, noted that while he did not win more conservative areas any more – such as the blue collar mining communities in the state’s “Iron Range” – he outperformed other Democrats and appealed beyond the party’s base.
She expressed doubt that the Trump campaign’s criticisms of his pro-trans policies would pay off and urged it to focus on issues like his handling of Covid fraud and the Black Lives Matter protests.
“I don’t know how much it moves the needle,” Ms Koch said. “From my perspective, those are harder hits on Walz than some of the other stuff.”
But Mr Samuelson, who lived in several Republican states before moving to Minnesota, suggested the attacks on Mr Walz’s trans stance could cut through, at least in the short term, with conservative-leaning voters.
“Based on having known a lot of Republicans, I think it will initially resonate with them,” he said. “But I don’t think it will pay off long-term.”
