Walz takes his State of the State speech on the road to the southern Minnesota city of Owatonna

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz is taking his 2024 State of the State address on the road to the southern Minnesota city of Owatonna.

“Minnesota’s made a lot of progress in the last year, and I’m excited to talk about what’s next in our fight to make Minnesota the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” the Democratic governor said last week in a social media post previewing his Tuesday night speech.

Some of the themes Walz has said he will address include how Democrats have used their full control of the statehouse to try to make people’s lives easier, improving education, implementing gun safety laws and protecting abortion and other reproductive rights. He picked Owatonna High School as the setting to highlight how the community has made big investments in the relatively new school and in workforce development.

This will be Walz’s sixth State of the State speech since becoming governor in 2019. Governors traditionally deliver them at the Capitol to large audiences of lawmakers, but he gave his 2020 address by himself via livestream from his official residence to stay socially distanced during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He faced another online-only audience in 2021 when he spoke from Mankato West High School, where he was once a geography teacher and football coach.

Walz returned to the Capitol for his 2022 address and again for last year’s address, which he used to draw stark contrasts between Minnesota and Republican-led states. He highlighted how Democrats used their new control over state government to enact an ambitious liberal agenda, bucking the backlash seen in red states against abortion rights, trans rights, pushes for racial equity and other cultural flashpoints.

The governor and his