Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, is drawing comparisons to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who also has national ambitions. Outside of military experience, of which Newsom has none, the two men do have a few things in common. Consider, for example, their response to the COVID pandemic.

As Minnesota attorney John Hinderaker notes, Gov. Walz issued an executive order that “prohibited any resident of Minnesota from leaving his or her house, except as permitted by him. It was perhaps the most overtly fascist measure in America’s history.” To monitor compliance, Walz set up a hotline for informers. Their tips led to reports on people playing basketball, walking their dog, and attending church. Walz limited church attendance to 10 persons, or 25 percent of a congregation, and his hotline remained operational until June 2022.

Newsom did not set up a snitch line, but according to members of the state National Guard, he readied an F-15C fighter jet to frighten demonstrators protesting his COVID crackdown. The governor’s office denies any such deployment was ever in the works, but the people might wonder what could possibly have gone wrong.

Newsom did issue a stay-at-home order, proposed a ban on sport fishing, and on his watch police arrested solitary paddleboarders on ocean beaches. Newsom’s rules for private gatherings mandated six-foot distancing and discouraged singing or the playing of musical instruments such as the trumpet and clarinet.

“All gatherings must be held outside,” the governor’s rules stipulated. “Attendees may go inside to use restrooms as long as the restrooms are frequently sanitized.” Those rules are no longer in effect, but Newsom maintains many other COVID restrictions. In April of 2020, Newsom spent $1 billion on masks from a Chinese company, hiding details of the deal even from fellow Democrats. Californians have yet to receive a full accounting for this unnecessary spending.

Tim Walz has taken heat for mandating tampons in boys’ restrooms, but his overall policy is much broader. Walz signed legislation turning Minnesota into a “trans refuge,” a legal sanctuary for children from other states. In similar style, Newsom signed a bill to offer refugeto children from other states in search of “gender-affirming care.” Neither governor expressed concern about the dangers of hormone treatments, puberty blockers, and irreversible “reassignment” surgeries such as penectomy and vaginoplasty.

Newsom also signed Senate Bill 145, giving judges a say on listing an adult as a sex offender for oral or anal sex with a minor if the adult is no more than 10 years older. Supporters defended the measure as equal treatment for homosexual defendants, but San Diego Democrat Lorena Gonzalez didn’t think so. “I cannot in my mind as a mother understand how sex between a 24-year-old and a 14-year-old could ever be consensual,” Gonzalez said while the measure was being debated.

For his part, Walz signed H.F. 1655, an amendment to the Take Pride Act, which outlawed discrimination based on “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” As with California’s SB-145, signed by Newsom, critics charged that it protected pedophiles. As it happens, the two governors also share enthusiasm for China.

Tim Walz first visited China in 1989, months after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and returned to the communist nation some 30 times. Walz taught in China and spent his honeymoon there with his wife Gwen, also a teacher. The couple led high school tour groups and went on to arrange annual student trips to the PRC.

Walz maintains close relations with the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association (USCPFA), founded in 1971 as a communist front organization in the manner of Soviet front groups of the 1930s and 1940s. In 2019 Walz spoke at a USCPFA convention on a bill with Li Xialin, president of the China People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which leads efforts to influence American politicians.

California is doubtless the most pro-China state, choosing to use Chinese materials and labor for the new span of the Bay Bridge, which came in 10 years late, $5 billion over budget, and riddled with safety issues. Newsom visited China in 2023, expressing little if any criticism of the regime’s human rights record.

Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, which in recent years has become something of an open-air latrine. When China’s Xi Jinping came to town for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit last November, Newsom had the city scrubbed clean and the homeless population kept out of sight. Locals wondered why these services had not been performed for longtime city residents.

As veteran California commentator Dan Walters notes, Gavin Newsom is drenched in old money from the Newsom, Getty, Brown and Pelosi families. Walz is of humbler background, born in Nebraska to a “public school administrator and community activist.” On the other hand, when it comes to wielding national power, Tim Walz may soon hold a decided advantage.