Two years later, Mr Walz stood for Congress in Minnesota’s first district, a heavily rural area covering the south of Minnesota where only one other Democrat had won in the preceding century. Mr Martin says that he remembers hearing of Mr Walz’s candidacy and thinking: “There’s no way in hell he’s going to win.” But Mr Walz got 53% of the vote. Twelve years later, having held onto his district even as other rural Democrats shed theirs, he ran for governor. In 2022 he was re-elected and his party won the state house and senate, giving Democrats a trifecta for the first time in eight years.