Minnesota's senior U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who ran for president in 2020, is now eyeing the Minnesota governor's office. On Thursday, she filed the paperwork to make a formal run.
This is just two weeks after Gov. Tim Walz announced he was ending his re-election bid. Klobuchar and Walz met a day before he announced he was dropping out, and since then political observers have been waiting for Klobuchar to make a decision.
Political analyst Todd Rapp said Klobuchar is a candidate that Republicans do not want to be up against.
“I'm not going to predict that she'll be the only candidate at that [DFL] convention,” he said. “But it would be very surprising if she wasn't in a position to confidently win both the endorsement and the nomination.”
Rapp also said that without Walz, the fraud narrative, which dominated national conversation for weeks, is harder to pin to a candidate like Klobuchar. He said President Donald Trump’s persistent attention on Minnesota has shifted focus to other issues.
“Is it going to be possible for Republicans to truly create fraud as the issue that it once was maybe three or four weeks ago?” Rapp asked. “It's tough to bring issues back and have them have the same level of intensity.”
According to Rapp, Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who announced her run in November, is probably Klobuchar’s toughest opponent at the moment. He said she has the ability to introduce herself as a fresh face to Minnesotans and, unlike other candidates, can distinguish herself on issues separate from Trump.
“Which race would be the most interesting and probably be the most issue-focused around things that that independents and other swing voters care about? I think that'd be a very interesting race,” Rapp said.
Listen to Rapp’s full analysis by clicking the player above.
