Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign issued a statement rejecting Walz’s call to abolish the Electoral College earlier this week, stating that his view is not a view of the campaign. In clarifying his comment that the Electoral College “needs to go,” Walz stated that voters need to feel that their vote matters regardless of whether they live in a battleground state.

“So the campaign’s position is clear on this, it’s not to get rid of the Electoral College, but it’s to focus on every vote,” Walz said on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream. “And I think your viewers out there listening want to see these campaigns in every corner, talking to every person. And look, as a rural guy, that’s, again you know how politics go, cut off the back part of this, my point being on that was is those are areas that need to be heard. So, every voter out there, every vote needs to count.”

Walz was also asked about a comment he made in 2022 claiming that “there’s no guarantee to free speech for misinformation or hate speech,” specifically who gets to determine what constitutes misinformation. The governor spent a large portion of his answer focusing on supporting free speech, and how his opposition to book bans within the country is part of his focus on free speech.

Towards the end of his interview, Walz dismissed a piece contending that Minnesota is seeing an exodus of residents comparable to New York or California, as his state is “a top five business state.” When asked about the crime within his state, he claimed that crime has gone down in both Minnesota and the United States as a whole.

Last week, Walz contended that several misstatements he had made on the 2024 campaign trail were made from him speaking “passionately.” The governor and his past comments, including ones made on his military record, have come under scrutiny since he was selected as Harris’s running mate.

Walz has since stated he would heed Harris’s call to be more “careful” in his speech.