Representative Walter Hudson Contact information

Walter Hudson is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2023. He is a member of the Republican Party of Minnesota and represents District 30A in the northwestern Twin Cities metropolitan area. This includes the cities of St. Michael, Otsego, and Albertville, and parts of Hennepin and Wright Counties.

Hudson was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a Black father and a white mother. He received a bachelor’s degree in information technology from the University of Phoenix. Hudson served on the Albertville planning commission and the city council from 2014 to 2021. He has a background in conservative talk radio and hosted the show Closing Argument with Walter Hudson. He has worked for the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He was vice chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Minnesota and active in Minnesota’s Tea Party Patriot movement. He supported Mike McFadden’s 2014 campaign for U.S. Senate.

Hudson was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2022. He first ran after redistricting and after four-term Republican incumbent Eric Lucero announced he would run for a seat in the Minnesota Senate. Hudson serves on the Children and Families Finance and Policy and Public Safety Finance and Policy Committees.

Hudson campaigned on promises to ban “the practice of critical race theory in public education”, oppose “the sexualization of students via comprehensive sex ed”, and abolish abortion. His campaign website claimed the 2020 election had questionable outcomes and said “our election system is fundamentally broken and deeply corrupt”. Hudson is an anti-abortion activist and believes that women’s right to abortion should be abolished. In 2022, he called for women who travel to other states to receive abortions to be arrested for murder. Hudson has spoken at anti-vaccine rallies held by the organization Mask Off MN, and during a December 2022 meeting of the group he compared medical professionals recommending COVID-19 vaccines to slave owners. In 2015, Hudson said that offenders released on parole should have the right to vote restored to them. In 2023, when a bill restoring the right to vote was before the House, he voted against the bill.

Hudson’s father grew up in Detroit in a neighborhood which imposed limits. He was told he would never amount to anything. Any aspiration was mocked. Any goal undermined. But his father persevered. He believed that he could create a better life for himself and his family if he cut against the grain, worked harder, went to school, took risks, and made moves. For a couple years of Hudson’s early childhood, he never saw his father, because he worked overnight, slept during the day, and attended trade school in the afternoon. His effort eventually paid off. He moved up from airline stock clerk to commercial airplane mechanic, working for what was then Northwest Airlines and would become Delta. When his moment came, he jumped at the opportunity to move his family from Detroit to the airline’s hub - Minneapolis/St. Paul. Hudson fell in love with Minnesota and never looked back. They settled in Cottage Grove, which was like a dream for a kid from urban blight. Empowered by his bike, Hudson was twenty minutes away from any type of place he wanted to be. He could ride out east into the country toward Afton, or roll down to the Mississippi River. He could go down to the library which was a block away and read anything that tickled his fancy. Though he didn’t think of it in such terms at the time, he knew he was blessed. He knew he had opportunity. And he knew enough to be grateful to those who had provided it - not just his dad - but his nation. As the son of a black father and a white mother, he was aware that his very existence was a testament to history made. Ten years before his birth, there were still states in the Union where his parent’s marriage would have been illegal. And yet, he faced no such limitations. He grew up in what was perhaps the most color-blind of American generations. No one cared who his father was, or why his skin was brown, and they would not stand in the way of whatever he might achieve on merit. He was free to succeed or fail without boost or ballast. And he owed that to those who fought for him across the generations, from the American Revolution to the end of Jim Crow. Today, we’ve regressed. Today, his sons may be taught to hate some portion of their own heritage. Today, what was once opportunity has been defamed as “privilege.” Hudson is running to turn the tide, to turn our course back toward the promise of a nearly achieved dream. We can be the shining city on a hill.