Dr. Scott Jensen, whose gubernatorial campaign fell well short of beating current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in the 2022 election, says he's once again running for the state's top office.
The 70-year old Jensen, who also served as State Senator representing part of Carver County between 2017 and 2021, announced his bid Thursday morning on his YouTube channel.
"Because Minnesota is for families who wanna build it, and America is for Americans who wanna love it," Jensen said in the video.
"Two decades of liberal policy have made Minnesota too expensive, too dangerous, and thrown our culture out of whack," Jensen continues. "Tim Walz made it worse. A leader must take responsibility. Tim Walz didn't and so he shouldn't be governor."
Jensen joins Kendall Qualls in the 2026 race on the Republican side - so far.
Walz, meanwhile, has yet to announce officially whether he'll seek a third term, but there have been indications lately that he does plan to do that.
It was not a close race in 2022 between Walz and Jensen. The Walz-Flanagan ticket won 52% versus 44% for Jensen-Birk. He did fare better than Walz's opponent had in 2018 (Jeff Johnson) and made gains against Walz in rural parts of Minnesota. But he did not overcome Walz's wide lead in the Twin Cities metro area.
"Well, I saw that, I congratulate Scott," Governor Walz told WCCO's Susie Jones Thursday morning. "He's, you know, we're civically minded people and we encourage people to run for office. And it looks like he threw his hat in and I encourage that. It looks like there's several Republicans over there going to run."
In a 2023 interview with WCCO's Chad Hartman, Jensen reflected on the race crediting Walz and the Democrats for running a firm campaign.
"They knew what their objectives were, and they won handily," Jensen told Hartman. "I've had a chance to spend some time reflecting, just reconnecting with some of those foundational pieces in my life and it feels good."
Over the course of 2022's campaign, many political strategists said Jensen made crucial mistakes in taking a stance that alienated the crucial independent voters in the state and gave Walz and the DFL ammunition to use against their campaign.
"I think at some level, I probably lost my way, in terms of maybe speaking from my intellect and from my heart," said Jensen who appeared on political strategist Michael Brodkorb's podcast on July 20, 2023. "I think you sometimes get wrapped up in the messaging. The mistakes that were made were truly all mine. I think I was a relatively naïve candidate that thought the idea of having to stay within their own guardrails maybe was a little overdone. In the end it wasn't. My willingness to engage in ill-advised comments caught up with me."