Now that we know current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is not going to continue his run for a third consecutive term in office in 2026, it sets up a wide-open race for Minnesota's top executive. And that comes with speculation over who is in - and who might be.
Walz is exiting the 2026 gubernatorial race amid growing fraud scrutiny, dropping his bid for a third consecutive term. He stated he can’t balance a reelection campaign while defending the state against "cynics" and an ongoing fraud crisis.
Currently, there isn't a confirmed candidate for governor on the Democrat side in Minnesota. But KSTP-TV Chief Political Reporter, and WCCO host Tom Hauser says U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar is expected to announce her campaign soon. A person who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the senator, who ran for president in 2020, has not made a final decision.
Klobuchar entering the race would place one of the state's most popular current political figures into a race against a number of Republican candidates. Klobuchar has handily won all four of her races for U.S. Senate, most recently in 2024. WCCO Political Analyst Blois Olson also noted when breaking the news Walz was dropping out of the race that the governor met with Klobuchar on Sunday.
Those candidates include current House Speaker Lisa Demuth (Cold Spring), current State Rep. Kristin Robbins (Maple Grove), Donald Trump loyalist and MyPillow CEO/Founder Mike Lindell, Minnesota businessman Kendall Qualls, attorney Chris Madel, and former Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann.
Who comes out of the GOP side isn't likely to be decided for months. Qualls won the first GOP straw poll in the state in December, with another one scheduled soon.
Republicans in the state will need to make a decision who stands the best chance against Klobuchar, or any other candidate the Democrats put on the 2026 ticket. With Walz dealing with increasing fraud issues inside state government, many political insiders thought he was vulnerable in this election.
Minnesota Republicans haven't won a statewide race since Tim Pawlenty won his second term as governor in 2006, a time when U.S. politics, Minnesota politics, and certainly pre-Trump Republican politics was very different.
Pawlenty, for his part, sees the race as virtually a lock for Klobuchar if she decides to run, telling WCCO's Chad Hartman on Monday she's nearly impossible to beat in "blue" Minnesota.
"Look, on WCCO, especially with you Chad, I don't like to spin. I don't like to give you out any BS," Pawlenty explained. "I'll just tell it to you straight. If she gets in the race, she is going to be very, very formidable. it's going to take an extraordinary effort and a lot of luck to beat her in the blue State of Minnesota. Again, some of this is going to depend on what else happens for the rest of the year relative to the macro-environment, what happens with Trump. And you know, there's some possibility that mistakes can be made on the campaign trail, but she's a seasoned campaigner, obviously a cautious or measured person. She's not likely to make a lot of big mistakes. So, I'll just say this. If she gets in the race, she will be very, very formidable."
Rep. Robbins who is also the Chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy committee, told Vineeta Sawkar on the WCCO Morning News that Walz leaving the race shouldn't change anything for the GOP in the race.
"I don't think it really changes because everyone who will run in his place still owns all the same problems he created for Minnesotans, right? So the massive fraud, Democrats have turned a blind eye to this for years," Robbins said. "And secondly, the fiscal mismanagement. All the Democrats voted for all of the spending, the surplus, the tax increases, leaving us with a giant deficit. I mean, all of these things happened on their watch. And so I think the issues that Minnesotans care about are still the same."
Another prominent Republican in the state, State Senator for Carver County Julia Coleman, told WCCO's Adam Carter they need to decide quickly who will run on the GOP side in order to mount a strong campaign.
"First of all, that field needs to narrow down," Coleman, who called the race a toss-up now, said Monday. "So if you didn't place within the top three to five in the endorsement straw poll, if your fundraising isn't within the top three to five, you need to bow out and allow people to filter out. Because we don't want to be beating up on each other through August and then turn around to that very short runway to November. And keep in mind with early voting, voting is going to start right after that primary as well. And we'll have been only talking to the base and not to the general public. So people need to start getting out of that race."
Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Fredriksen (formerly Koch) called the decision by Walz a massive shift in the Minnesota political landscape.
"We're hearing US Senator Amy Klobuchar, we're hearing Secretary of State Steve Simon, we're hearing Attorney General Keith Ellison," added Frederiksen. "Because Governor Walz announced and sort of kept everyone out of the race, now there's gonna be a catch up. There's gonna be, 'I have to get in, I have to raise money, I have to make a move.' And there'll be a little bit of an arms race to see who can get there first and start raising money and sort of hit the ground running."
On the other side of the aisle, former Democratic State Senator Jeffy Hayden says it wouldn't be shocking to see Klobuchar jump into the race, but he also expects some lesser known names on the DFL side to also get more involved. He says one advantage Klobuchar has is she has been in Washington, and removed from the in-state fraud issues.
"Senator Klobuchar is a very popular politician across Minnesota, she has a political infrastructure, she's super smart, she's very capable, she has great name recognition," adds Hayden. "So all of those things. And she's not connected, because she was In Washington. She wasn't connected to state government. So that makes sense. I've not heard even from people that I know that have worked for her, that said definitively that she was going to run. They don't know either."
One prominent Minnesota political name that will not be entering the race? Former Rep. Dean Phillips, who posted to social media Monday he's not interested in running for governor, or the senate.
"I have no intention to run for Minnesota Governor or US Senate," he said. "But I stand at the ready to assist common sense candidates committed to reducing the cost of living, improving education and public safety, addressing corruption, and restoring competency in governance."