The race for Minnesota State Auditor appears to be over with Republican challenger Ryan Wilson conceding to Democrat Julie Blaha. Blaha will be reelected to her second term.
“I want to thank everyone that supported my candidacy for state auditor," Wilson says in a statement. "We put up a strong campaign, but came up just short of our goal. I am proud of the hard work that our team put in over the last nine months. Minnesota is a wonderful place with great people, and it was an honor for me to travel the state meeting Minnesotans, hearing their stories and sharing mine.”
Blaha grew up in Nowthen, Minnesota. She graduated from St. Cloud State University with a B.A. in elementary education and earned her masters degree in education from St. Mary’s University. Blaha served as a middle school math teacher in the Anoka-Hennepin school district, was past president of Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota, and was the first woman elected secretary-treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO.
Blaha told WCCO's Vineeta Sawkar that it was a humbling win.
"When you have any race that's close, it's a humbling kind of a win," says Blaha. "It really forces you to make sure you are truly reaching out to unify people after a close race like this."
Blaha and Wilson battled through a very tight campaign, which was amplified by the Feeding Our Future fraud case. Wilson was critical of Blaha for not being more involved in stopping the fraud while Blaha has said it was outside the scope of her office, which historically is true. The office was created to audit local governments, not state governments.
“You cannot have an auditor that decides how an audit should work based on a headline,” Blaha says. “You have to follow the standards. That's why people trust an audit, because it's not about the headlines. It's not about making political points. It's about following the standards.”
Wilson disagreed and said that the office should have been more aggressive in getting involved.
“When I'm state auditor, I won't just answer the questions that we have to answer, that we need to answer, but the questions of Minnesotans want answered,” says Wilson.
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