Tim Walz admits he was surprised by election defeat: 'Thought the country was ready'

Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate Tim Walz opened up about his disappointment over losing to President-elect Donald Trump in his first interview since the November election.

Talking to local Minnesota outlet KSTP-TV on Thursday, the Minnesota governor admitted he was "a little surprised" by the election results.

"It felt like at the rallies, at the things I was going to, the shops I was going in, that the momentum was going our way, and it obviously wasn’t at the end," Walz said.

"So yeah, I was a little surprised. I thought we had a positive message and I thought the country was ready for that," he added.

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Despite the election loss, Walz said it was a "privilege" to be picked as Harris' running mate on the Democratic ticket.

"It was a privilege to be asked to serve with Vice President Harris. Certainly got to see America!" he said.

Asked whether he helped or hurt Harris' presidential campaign, Walz said he couldn't be the judge of that.

"History will write that," he told KSTP-TV. "It wasn’t my decision to make. It was the vice president’s decision."

"As I said in this campaign, when you asked the question, ‘Were there things you could have done differently?' Since we lost, the answer is obviously yes. On this one, I did the best I could," he continued.

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Walz said he would miss the excitement of the presidential campaign but was looking forward to returning to governing in Minnesota.

"Coming back here now and having the privilege to do this work feels really good," he said. "I’m actually really looking forward to this legislative session with some different dynamics around it."

Harris and Walz were the first Democratic ticket to lose the popular vote since 2004. Trump and running mate JD Vance swept the major battleground states and made significant gains in blue states from 2020.

According to one senior adviser for the Harris campaign, internal polling never actually saw Harris defeating Trump.

"I think it surprised people because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw," top Harris campaign aide David Plouffe said recently on "Pod Save America," a show hosted by staffers of former President Barack Obama.  

"We didn’t get the breaks we needed on Election Day," he told the show.

Fox News' Julia Johnson contributed to this report.