WASHINGTON — When the Democratic Party needed a strong candidate to keep Minnesota’s governor’s seat in the “blue” column, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar answered the call.
“I truly do love my job in the Senate, but I love my state more than any job and I believe that we can get to a better place,” Klobuchar said. “I don’t like the status quo.”
Heavily favored to be Minnesota’s next governor and the first woman to hold that position, Klobuchar’s strategy is to distance herself from Gov. Tim Walz and to crack down on any allegations of fraud with a 40-point plan aimed at reforming state government. And she said she is ready to rush the transformation.
“Patience is a virtue, but it’s one I don’t have,” she said.
Klobuchar, 66, said she received calls from both state DFLers and national Democrats after Walz in early January reversed course and decided not to run for a third term, giving Klobuchar just one day’s notice of his decision.
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“I’d been saying, ‘Maybe you could wait two weeks,’” said Klobuchar, who herself waited two weeks to file as a gubernatorial candidate.
She said “there were a lot of people in the Senate that made the case for me to stay there.”
“But I think people understood the unique moment we were in as a state and why I made that decision,” she said.
A member of the Democratic leadership in the Senate, Klobuchar has through seniority and grit climbed the ranks to win the No. 3 spot in Senate Democratic leadership as chair of the Steering and Policy Committee.
But Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who has worked closely with Klobuchar on regional issues, said Klobuchar may have been considering how much further she could climb. “She had to weigh, ‘Do I stay and see how that plays out or do I go back to Minnesota?’” Hoeven said.
Tim Lindberg, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, said Klobuchar may have suffered some frustration working in a closely divided Senate. Whether the chamber is controlled by Democrats or Republicans, the filibuster rule that requires much legislation to have the support of at least 60 senators has impeded many initiatives from moving forward.
“Being governor allows her to be in a power position where she can do things and make big changes,” Lindberg said.
The professor said the advantage of an open seat and the fact Klobuchar entered the race fairly early, “eclipsing all other possible (Democratic) contenders,” was in her favor.
Klobuchar said the “horror” of what has happened recently in Minnesota, including the murders of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents during Operation Metro Surge also influenced her decision to run for governor.
“I’ve always believed that we could get to higher ground and it’s been one thing after another that’s made that hard in Minnesota,” she said.
Last month, Klobuchar chose former Fergus Falls Mayor Ben Schierer as her lieutenant governor candidate.
Having represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate since 2007, Klobuchar is a known political commodity.
A moderate who nonetheless is willing to take on powerful interests — including the pharmaceutical industry and the tech giants — albeit in a limited way, Klobuchar is considered a workaholic on Capitol Hill — a trait she acknowledges often wears out her staff. She’s also distinguished herself by her ability to find common ground with Republicans to pass legislation.
“I’ve always focused on getting things done,” she said. “There’s this moment in time that is not going to be like any other where we’ve been facing hard things and I want to make sure that we stay together as a state, despite the political divides and changing the status quo and not just accepting things and restoring people’s trust in our government again.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said she learned a lot from Klobuchar about the workings of the Senate when they worked together on regional issues.
“When she’s trying to persuade a colleague on an issue, she’s really prepared,” Baldwin said. “She also has the instinct to know where an agreement can be forged.”
And Klobuchar, who was born in Plymouth, is tireless when it comes to meeting voters.
“She visits every single county in Minnesota every year,” Baldwin said. “That means to me she knows every corner of the state and she has her finger on the pulse.”
Hoeven said that when working on joint projects with Klobuchar, including a massive Red River flood protection plan, he noticed that “she probably gets no more than six hours of sleep.”
Lindberg said Klobuchar is bipartisan in a “politically palatable way.” He said she does not embrace GOP initiatives but finds ways to work with Republicans that share common interests with her.
Her partnership with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for instance, resulted in the Take it Down Act, which criminalizes the non-consensual sharing of AI-generated images and requires social media platforms to remove such content within 48 hours.
“It’s a model (to take down) other inappropriate things on platforms,” Klobuchar said
The senator said she used her position as chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inauguration Ceremonies, which put her in close contact with First Lady Melania Trump on the day President Donald Trump took his second oath of office, to successfully lobby for the president’s support of the Take it Down Act.
The ‘strongest DFL statewide candidate’
A Yale grad who earned her law degree at the University of Chicago, wrote several books on policy, made a bid for the White House and served as Hennepin County attorney, Klobuchar has had name recognition in the state for decades.
At the start of her career, that name recognition may have been at least in part due to her father, Jim Klobuchar, who was a prominent and much-admired sports and politics reporter for the Star Tribune.
Now she is by far the best-known Klobuchar in the state and such a political heavyweight that the DFL is betting that having her name on the top of the ballot will lift the fortunes of other DFL candidates.
Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections said Klobuchar’s strength is “that she has universal name ID and a track record of being the strongest DFL statewide candidates over the past decade.”
“She has a nationwide fundraising base from her time in the Senate and presidential run, and an existing statewide infrastructure that she can redirect to her gubernatorial contest,” Rubashkin said.
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She has already raised more than $7 million in campaign cash, far outpacing her political rivals.
If Klobuchar wins the Democratic primary in August against progressive challenger Kobey Layne, as expected, the senator will face one of three Republicans. They are House Speaker Lisa Demuth, former healthcare executive Kendall Qualls or My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, all of whom are vying for the GOP nomination in their party’s August primary.
Since Klobuchar does not know yet who her Republican opponent will be, she’s focusing much of her campaign on hitting Trump on a variety of issues — including the reflecting pool fiasco – and on the Democrats’ political mantra of “affordability” as prices for oil, food and other necessities continue to climb.
Her appeals for campaign donations, however, focus on Lindell, whose personal allegiance to Trump prompted Lindell to make false claims about the 2020 election that have led to a number of lawsuits and multi-million dollar judgments and who is better known than the other Republicans vying for Walz’s seat.
Whoever wins the GOP primary, however, is likely to be an underdog in November’s general election. Republicans have not filled a statewide seat in Minnesota in 20 years.
Clout that would be hard to replace
If Klobuchar wins in November, it will be difficult for any candidate that is appointed to fill out the rest of her term to match her clout.
Among the benefits Klobuchar’s seniority and skills have brought is her ability to direct billions of federal dollars to Minnesota.
Baldwin said she worked with Klobuchar to procure more than $1 billion to replace the 60-year-old Blatnik Bridge, a crossing that carries Interstate 535 and U.S. Highway 53 over the Saint Louis River, connecting Duluth and Superior, Wis.
The project had been given a green light through former President Joe Biden’s massive infrastructure bill, but there were concerns about its fate after Trump was elected to his second term.
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So, the Democratic senators successfully lobbied Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who happens to come from northern Wisconsin.
Klobuchar’s relationship with Hoeven was also forged through a joint effort to wrest money for their states from Washington.
In this case, the money they sought was for a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers flood prevention project along the Red River. The senators and the volunteers on their side of the river had a friendly rivalry filling sandbags to prevent the river from flooding, but the permanent solution was a $3.2 billion public-private partnership that required “a lot of legislation,” Hoeven said.
Yet Hoeven, who was North Dakota’s Republican governor before entering the Senate, said there is no doubt about which is the best political job.
“Governor was the better job,” Hoeven said. “I am deeply honored to be in the Senate, but as governor you can set your agenda and work with people to achieve it and Amy would really like that.”
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