Tim Walz and I were sitting down for breakfast earlier this month at a Courtyard by Marriott in Independence, Ohio, just outside Cleveland. Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate last year, is still the governor of a state that happens not to be Ohio—or West Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, or Texas, all of which he had visited recently.

This was a bit curious, especially because it is not a presidential-election year. His three-day tour of northeastern Ohio included labor roundtables, impromptu roadside stops, and two town-hall meetings. What was he up to exactly?