Republicans at their state convention in Duluth today (3pm start) choose candidates for Minnesota’s two U-S Senate seats, with State Senator Karin Housley the favorite to run for the seat formerly held by Al Franken and currently occupied by Democrat Tina Smith. State Representative Jim Newberger is the favored candidate to run against Democrat Amy Klobuchar.
The endorsement for governor comes tomorrow, but whether it means anything remains to be seen. Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson is front-runner, with Woodbury Mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens and G-O-P activist Phillip Parrish also vying for the nomination. Former Governor Tim Pawlenty is also in the race for his third term but is skipping the Republican convention, and Carleton College Professor Steven Schier says Pawlenty could well win the August Republican primary. “It’s not at all clear that the state convention’s going to make any big difference for the gubernatorial race,” says Schier.
Pawlenty says he got into the race so late it’s not realistic to play catch-up at the convention. “But I also think going forward it is gonna be healthy for the political discussion and process in Minnesota to have a broader and larger group of people weigh in on who they want their candidates to be,” he says. Johnson contends he’s a stronger candidate than Pawlenty. “I can talk about the future and he — fair or not — he’s gonna get bogged down with the past, whether it is his time as governor or his time as a lobbyist or his flip-flopping around on Donald Trump,” Johnson says.
Pawlenty says he will not be in Duluth during the convention: “If you’re gonna go there and participate, you should go there and participate, and we decided to not pursue the endorsement and so we thought it would be best to allow that process to unfold as it’s going to.”
Johnson says he won’t win on the first ballot, but his goal is to be in the lead and take the nomination by the third or fourth. He notes, “One of the options on the ballot is no endorsement, and I am assuming that any Pawlenty people there will be pushing hard for that. So that could be 10, 15 percent of the vote right there — and both the other candidates who will be there certainly have their strengths.”
Carleton Professor Schier says Pawlenty has a lot of advantages, including name I-D dwarfing the other candidates, plus more money. “If he is viewed positively by the electorate — and we don’t really have evidence on that yet — he could be a really tough candidate in both the primary and the general election,” Schier says.
Pawlenty’s comments before the convention:
Johnson said in this interview on the road to Duluth: