In an interview with Spectrum News on Tuesday night, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, said he was bullish on Democrats’ chances to retake the House and maintain hold of the Senate, criticizing Congress for once again flirting with a government shutdown.

When asked how he and Harris will get their economic proposals — a mixture of small business tax cuts, housing incentives and family-centric policies branded the “opportunity economy” by the vice president and her campaign — through Congress, Walz said that these are policies that Americans are clamoring for, and that their representatives in Washington aren’t delivering on.

“Look, Congress has a 13% approval rating right now,” Walz said, before chiding lawmakers for not delivering on urgent priorities like the twice-per-decade Farm Bill and the annual Pentagon spending bill. (In truth, Congressional approval was at 19% in August, per Gallup, though it was at 13% in May.)

“They haven't passed a farm bill,” he continued. “They haven't passed a defense bill. They're talking about shutting down the government. They'll find out what happens, they will find new work, because I think what we're going to see is, I think we're going to see a shift in the leadership in Congress. I think we're going to see the Democrats take the House, and I do believe we'll hold the Senate.”

With less than two weeks to go until a partial shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson is forging ahead Wednesday with a partisan plan to temporarily fund the government that includes a proposal aimed at curbing noncitizen voting — an extremely rare practice — which Democrats have branded as a nonstarter. Members of his own party are also opposed to the plan, signaling a possible doomed effort.

Flipping the House certainly isn’t outside of the realm of possibility for Democrats, who only currently trail Republicans by nine seats, though holding the U.S. Senate may be a tougher order, given they’re defending two seats in states former President Donald Trump won handily in 2020 and are all but certain to lose a third with the retirement of Joe Manchin in bright-red West Virginia.

Walz also emphasized the need to compromise to get things done, urging the need to work across the aisle with Republicans — something he said he prioritized during his time in the House.

“We're going to compromise to get things done, but you can't have a government that is not interested in getting anything done,” Walz said. "So we're going to work, hopefully we have that working majority, and then we compromise with them to do the things that their constituents are telling them the same thing they’re telling us, get housing more affordable … having these witch hunts, or whatever they do, that doesn’t get anything done, and they’re going to hear about it.”

On the subject of housing, Walz emphasized Harris’ proposals to build 3 million new housing units over four years to alleviate supply issues and to provide $25,000 in down payment aid to first-time homebuyers as a way to ease burdens on Americans who are struggling.

Walz’s interview took place on National Voter Registration Day in a state that has seen an increase of 300,000 new voters in the last year. In the last week alone, registrations jumped by about 19,000, per the North Carolina Board of Elections. Democrats have seen an uptick in registrations in the state since Harris entered the race in place of Joe Biden, though the number of unaffiliated voters in the Tar Heel State greatly overshadows the number of registrants in both parties.

Walz said getting more people registered to vote is “huge” for the Harris campaign.

“It’s very easy, get yourself registered, be part of this political process,” Walz said. “And she’s been talking, look, if you’re not quite sure where you’re at, you’re an independent or whatever, get registered and listen to the things we’re talking about. So it’s critical.”

Walz mentioned that during his trip to Georgia ahead of his North Carolina stop, he was speaking to young Democrats who said they’ve “registered over 200,000” young voters since the 2022 midterms.

“That bodes well, because we know that when more people vote, we tend to see them lean in a direction that everybody’s a part of,” Walz added.

Walz spoke to Spectrum News after his rally in Asheville at Salvage Station, an iconic outdoor music venue on the banks of the French Broad River.

After taking the stage Tuesday to John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” addressing the roaring crowd who stood in the rain to watch his speech, Walz declared, “Okay, Asheville, you win.”

“My team just said this is the best rally crowd we’ve seen,” he continued. “And I think they’re absolutely right.”

In his roughly 30-minute remarks, Walz touched on a laundry list of topics, from commemorating the holidays of Constitution Day and National Voter Registration Day — “Two things we can probably teach Donald Trump a little more about,” he quipped — to gun safety — “When we say ‘freedom,’ we mean freedom to send our little ones to school without being shot dead in their classroom,” he said, referencing the Georgia school shooting earlier this month — and the far-right Project 2025 agenda — “I’ll thank them them this, at least they wrote down what they’re gonna do this time for us … if somebody takes the time to write the playbook, the football coach in me knows they’re gonna run the plays,” he joked — as he sought to make the case for North Carolina voters to flip the state blue for Harris in November.

“This damn TV show of his has been on for too long,” Walz said of Trump. “Let’s just cancel it in November."

Donning his "Coach Walz" persona, the Minnesota governor sought to motivate the crowd to continue volunteering and talking to their loved ones about the stakes of the election, saying that Harris has shown that she “can take care of herself — our job is blocking and tackling and cover her back, that’s what our job is.”

“Forty-nine days to go,” Walz said. "We’re finally gonna have early voting starting here … and we get the opportunity to make a difference not just for four years, but for 40 years. Not just here, but across the world, that’s what we get to do. So we’re in the fight, all gas, no brakes, sleep when you’re dead, and as the next president of the United States says, ‘when we fight, we win.’”