![]() ![]() He also said he had a message for Johnson: “This teacher stands up to bullies.” He dismissed the outcome on the Republican side: “It didn’t matter who they picked because the divisive message would be the same,” Walz said. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. Walz, 54, is a sixth-term congressman from southern Minnesota, and which backed President Donald Trump by 15 percentage points in 2016. Asked at his campaign party in Eagan if he was now retired from politics, he responded: “The answer is yes.” Pawlenty’s stunning primary loss brought a likely end to his political career. Although badly outspent by Pawlenty, Johnson ran a grass-roots campaign that took him around the state in an RV festooned with his image and the slogan, “Overthrow the Status Quo.”ĭespite a long career in politics that includes losing soundly to Dayton in 2014, nearly a decade on the Hennepin County Board and a stint in the Legislature, Johnson made the case for change against Pawlenty, who previously served as governor from 2003 to 2011. Johnson, 51, won the Republican endorsement at the party’s June convention. We have to win so we can let them keep more money in their pocket and leave government out of their daily lives,” Johnson said. We have to win for the people of Minnesota. If Johnson wins and Republicans hold on to legislative majorities, Republicans will have full control of state government for the first time in half a century, allowing them to reduce the size and scope of government and weaken the influence of public sector labor unions. The next governor will be in office after the 2020 census, after which new legislative and congressional districts will be drawn. Mark Dayton, which saw tax increases and bigger investments in schools and social programs. The stakes of the governor’s race are huge following the eight-year tenure of DFL Gov. He’s also not a “vulture,” she said, and doesn’t tear down fellow DFL candidates like others in his party. In Woodbury, DFL voter Lori Simon, 60, said Walz earned her vote for his position on issues like education and health care. “I felt that Johnson was more conservative,” Kennedy said. Voting at Pax Christi Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, Republican primary voter Robert Kennedy, 82, went for Johnson over Pawlenty. Erin Murphy and Attorney General Lori Swanson, bouncing back after losing the DFL endorsement at the state convention in June to an energetic Murphy campaign.īased on early returns data, more than 800,000 voters turned out to vote Tuesday, with still more precincts to count - beating recent primary totals. “If we take the state and bind it together, there’s nothing we can’t do. Walz, who is from Mankato, promised to use his biography and greater Minnesota ties to form new coalitions that could break through the gridlock that has crippled state government in recent years, on issues like taxes and the opioid epidemic. Paul: “I see that beautiful cross-section that is Minnesota and unending possibility that is sitting in this room,” Walz said, his face reddened after pumping fists on his way out to Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.” Walz, who spent 24 years in the National Guard and 20 years as a teacher, celebrated with a raucous crowd of supporters at the Carpenters Union Hall in St. “We have given the government of Minnesota back to the hardworking, forgotten men and women of this state, and you all helped,” Johnson said, gesturing at the jubilant crowd at his primary night party in Plymouth, where he lives. Pawlenty had been widely seen as the front-runner thanks to much higher name recognition from his two previous terms in office, and Johnson overcame a vast fundraising disadvantage with a message of change and by courting supporters of President Donald Trump. Tim Pawlenty’s bid to win back his old job. Johnson, a Hennepin County commissioner, derailed former Gov. Tim Walz won a three-way race in the DFL primary, setting up a clash of starkly different visions for the state’s future. Jeff Johnson shocked the Minnesota political world Tuesday with a commanding victory in the Republican primary for governor, while U.S.
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