Tim Walz is the winner of the Democratic primary for Minnesota governor, beating endorsed candidate Erin Murphy who ends up in second place and Attorney General Lori Swanson, who came in a distant third. In the Republican primary for governor, endorsed candidate Jeff Johnson bested his challenger, former Governor Tim Pawlenty. Johnson told a cheering crowd at his election night party, “I think we sent a message. People want something different these days, right?”
Johnson says he and Democratic opponent Tim Walz have “very different visions for the future of Minnesota.” He says, “I’m gonna talk about the fact that I want people to have more money in their pockets and less government interference in their lives, and Tim [Walz] is gonna have a very different vision from that, and I think that’s just really positive for Minnesota that we can an issue-based, vision-based campaign and they can decide where they want to go.”
Walz responds he believes in One Minnesota: when the Twin Cities thrive, Greater Minnesota thrives, and when Greater Minnesota does well, so does the Twin Cities.
Pawlenty told supporters as he conceded defeat in the primary election, “Obviously this is not the result that we had hoped for and worked for, but I want to first of all express gratitude — gratitude to a loving God, gratitude for living in the greatest nation the world has ever known, gratitude for living in the greatest state in the nation.”
Hamline University political analyst David Schultz says what made the difference for Jeff Johnson is that “Tim Pawlenty rested too much upon the idea that it was still his party and didn’t campaign hard enough. I think it was complacency. And for Jeff Johnson, it was the party moved on, it’s the party of Trump, and Jeff Johnson worked the ground game harder.”
Schultz says what gave Tim Walz the win over Erin Murphy and Lori Swanson: “He was able to make significant inroads into Minneapolis and actually Hennepin County and Ramsey County, and significantly was able to convince even the liberals that he was a more electable candidate than Erin Murphy was.”
More in this interview with Jeff Johnson: