Scott Jensen, a one-term state senator and family doctor who became a nationally known critic of COVID-19 restrictions, is the endorsed Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota.
In a dramatic state GOP convention, the Chaska resident ended up winning 65 percent of the vote of 2,200 delegates meeting at Rochester’s Mayo Civic Center on Saturday. He will enter the August primary potentially facing former Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who did not seek the party endorsement.
The other four GOP candidates who sought the endorsement — Lexington Mayor Mike Murphy, state Sen. Paul Gazelka, dermatologist Neil Shah and businessman Kendall Qualls — all pledged not to run in the primary if someone else was endorsed.
“Folks, it’s we the people,” Jensen said after taking the stage shortly before 6 p.m. “Let’s go from here, and let’s send a clear message to Tim Walz. We appreciate that you tried but we’re gonna give you early retirement. Game over, Tim Walz. Game over.”
Jensen prevailed over four candidates but it was Kendall Qualls, an Army retiree and business person who got into the race earlier this year after running for Congress in 2020, who lasted the longest in challenging Jensen.
Qualls talked extensively about being a Black Republican, saying Democrats’ worst fear is “a proud Black man that draws his identity from God and family over skin color.” He decried “equity audits” in government, referencing the state report on the Minneapolis Police Department documenting instances of racist behavior by police, he said Walz and other DFL officials want Minnesotans to wrongly believe Minnesota is “full of racist cops and racist people.”
“This is the least racist country in the world,” Qualls said, noting his parents and grandparents lived through the segregated Jim Crow South. “And this is the least racist time in American history.”
If he wins the primary in August, Jensen will face DFL Gov. Tim Walz, who was the target of much of the rhetoric during the convention session Saturday, which was devoted to the governor’s endorsement. On Friday, the state GOP endorsed Jim Schultz for attorney general, Kim Crockett for secretary of state and Ryan Wilson for auditor.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Bill Kelley[/image_credit][image_caption]Kendall Qualls: “This is the least racist country in the world. And this is the least racist time in American history.”[/image_caption]
A quick nine hours
Saturday’s session didn’t lack for drama.
With five candidates seeking the endorsement of the Minnesota state GOP for governor, and a winning endorsee needing 60 percent of the 2,200 delegates, someone was gonna have to drop out, someone was going to endorse a survivor, someone was going to be disappointed.
The first ballot put Jensen first, Qualls second, Murphy third, Shah fourth and Gazelka fifth. In subsequent ballots, Gazelka was dropped and endorsed Qualls, and Shah endorsed Murphy before he dropped below the threshold for staying in.
Each endorsement gave their candidate a bump. But by the fifth ballot, Qualls was slowly rising and Murphy was falling with Jensen in between. After each ballot, the remaining candidates were allowed to speak again, each using the time to respond to rumors and criticism. Qualls used an endorsement from Sen. Michelle Benson to boost his anti-abortion bona fides; Jensen used a nod from state Rep. Jeremy Munson to stave off concerns that he wasn’t conservative enough. Murphy, by contrast, had anti-COVID lockdown activist Mark Bishofsky say he was the best to stave off any future pandemic executive actions.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Bill Kelley[/image_credit][image_caption]State Sen. Paul Gazelka pledged not to run in the primary if someone else was endorsed.[/image_caption]
The numbers moved slightly in round five, with Qualls reaching 42 percent, the most anyone had received in those five votes.
Then came the bombshell. After the sixth ballot, Murphy fell below the 20 percent threshold, with 18.6 percent, and was eliminated. That left Qualls with 43 percent and Jensen with 38 percent.
Qualls, rather than appear on the big screen himself, displayed an endorsement of the state police officers association that had previously endorsed Gazelka. Jensen then won the endorsement of Murphy. He also apologized for co-sponsoring a gun safety bill while in the state Senate.
Standing with Jensen and Jensen’s lieutenant governor pick, former professional football player Matt Birk, Murphy alleged that Qualls offered him the lieutenant governor slot. But when Murphy asked what that would entail in a Qualls administration, he said, Qualls withdrew the offer.
Murphy called Qualls “a sellout” and endorsed Jensen. The next ballot saw Qualls’ total fall and Jensen get near to the 60 percent majority needed.
Qualls then said his integrity had been soiled and said no such offer was made and that Murphy approached the Qualls campaign to speak about what role he could play in a Qualls administration. When no offer was made, Qualls said Murphy left and went to Jensen.
The dispute led one delegate to propose not endorsing either candidate. The motion failed.
The eighth ballot saw Jensen fall back slightly but then, during yet another round of candidate speeches, Murphy spoke with Jensen beside him. He held up his phone with a text message from Qualls’ campaign manager that appeared to offer him the No. 2 job. But when Murphy said he was playing his options for joining the Qualls or Jensen campaign before endorsing anyone, many booed.
“Lose Murphy. Lose Murphy,” some shouted. But Jensen reached 65 percent on the next ballot and was declared the endorsed candidate.
“Was I nervous when we were behind four ballots in a row?” Jensen asked. “Yeah, it made me nervous. But what made me even more nervous was I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen next.”
Using sports metaphors that were common with a former Viking on the ticket, Jensen said at one point he asked Birk if it was the third quarter or the fourth. When told the third, Jensen said, “we had a heck of a fourth quarter and overtime.”
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Bill Kelley[/image_credit][image_caption]After the sixth ballot, Mike Murphy fell below the 20 percent threshold, with 18.6 percent, and was eliminated.[/image_caption]
“There’s always a little discord when you have a competitive convention,” Hann told reporters after Jensen was endorsed. “This year we had a lot of great candidates and so we were not expecting it to be smooth sailing, a few bumps on the road. At the end of the day, I think the convention delegates showed that they wanted an endorsement and they wanted to be unified.”
Wall-to-wall Walz
There weren’t many differences in policy or rhetoric between the five candidates seeking the endorsement. All focused on the themes of crime, election fraud, COVID interventions, public education, gun rights, abortion, Tim Walz, Tim Walz and Tim Walz.
The applause lines often featured Ilhan Omar, Tim Walz, defund the police, Tim Walz, critical race theory in schools, Tim Walz, the teachers union, Tim Walz, the Met Council, Tim Walz, mask requirements for schools, Tim Walz, Anthony Fauci, Tim Walz, Keith Ellison and Tim Walz.
“When I went against Tim Walz and said your modeling is flawed, when I told him his lockdown policies were ill-advised, when I chastised him for making his heroes [former New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo and [California Gov. Gavin] Newsome, I was alone,” Jensen said.
“When Walz shut us down, locked us out of our churches and masked our children, I banned it in my community and shut it down by making my city a health freedom sanctuary city, free of all the COVID nonsense,” Murphy said of Lexington, Minnesota where he is mayor.
“If my daughter is being carjacked and she has my two grandkids in the back seat, I don’t want her trying to escape. I want her pulling out a gun and shooting the damn felon,” Jensen said.
Murphy makes a mark
Murphy was often at the center of the convention’s drama. He started by accusing U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of stealing the 2020 election in the 5th Congressional District from his running mate Lacy Johnson “just like they stole 2020 from us.” (Johnson lost by more than 153,000 votes.)
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Bill Kelley[/image_credit][image_caption]Neil Shah endorsed Mike Murphy before he dropped below the threshold for staying in.[/image_caption]
Murphy surged ahead of the field on ballot three after an endorsement from Shah, who told the crowd that Qualls hadn’t taken a tough enough stance in limiting a governor’s use of peacetime emergency powers. “The time for a weak feckless Republican party is over in this state,” Shah said. The two embraced behind the scenes afterward.
Bear hug from @MikeMurphyForMN for @NeilShahMN #mngop pic.twitter.com/NtIzKkr8f7
— Morning Take (@morningtake) May 14, 2022
Then, it was Murphy’s endorsement of Jensen that eventually helped Jensen win, though not until after the verbal battle with Qualls.
Jensen rides COVID skepticism to endorsement
As a state Senator, Jensen sometimes broke with party leaders, including by supporting the gun regulation bill and co-sponsoring a bill to legalize recreational use of marijuana despite not backing legalization.
But Jensen rose to greater prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. He challenged COVID-19 case counts and death tolls, promoting at times false theories on social media and in TV appearances on Fox News. Jensen left the Senate, but the pandemic became central to his campaign for governor.
[cms_ad:x104]Jensen criticized Walz’s restrictions on businesses and gatherings during the pandemic and opposed vaccine mandates. He is unvaccinated, saying he has a measure of natural immunity from getting infected, which doctors say is not on par with full vaccination.
The COVID-19 skepticism drew support among Republicans but has led to fierce DFL criticism that he has denied the science on the deadly disease. Efforts to suspend Jensen’s medical license failed, but in July Facebook restricted Jensen from advertising for posting content they said had been debunked by fact-checkers, and he was removed from TikTok.
He had raised by far the most money of any GOP candidate in the race, according to the latest campaign finance reports for a period ending March 31. At the convention, he threw large parties and supporters could be seen in football jerseys bearing the names of both him and Birk.
At the convention, Jensen said it was wrong to have a state Social Security tax; he criticized medical procedures on transgender teenagers; endorsed “Constitutional carry” gun laws, and said he’d try to commute the sentence of Kim Potter, the ex-Brooklyn Center officer convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting Daunte Wright. He called for new voter identification requirements, said he’d fight for GOP priorities on election laws, made unfounded claims of voter fraud and suggested Secretary of State Steve Simon should be jailed in part for state actions on absentee ballots despite facing no allegations of criminal activity.
“I’ll shut down the government in order to get election security,” Jensen said.
This whole governor-candidate-nominating exercise at the Republican convention seems to have been an effort for each candidate to out-stupid the others. And since it seems, by all accounts, to have been a “fact light” gathering (or perhaps even fact free – I searched the article for a morsel, alas, in vain), does that make the “winner” Jensen the biggest loser?
Wow. Pretty scary when the biggest conspiracy theory nut job of the bunch (albeit the others are right up there with him) wins the endorsement. Each vote led to an escalation of bizarre promises and unfounded accusations and claims.
Hopefully sanity will continue to reign in Minnesota come November.
Common sense Minnesota voters are not going to elect an anti-vax, pro-Trump wing nut as governor. Ain’t gonna happen.
“One million – the nation’s immeasurable grief.” Today’s cover title on the New York Times, with a very detailed map of where deaths happened. Has any community been untouched?
In Rochester MN (medical Mecca for the world) self professed pro-life Republicans overwhelming and enthusiastically nominated a licensed family practice physician and one term legislator who has refused to endorse vaccination and other precautions during a global pandemic and threatened to jail a state election official who accepted Minnesota election results in where Trump and every state wide Republican nominee lost by large margins.
Never has a Minnesota political party been so far out of touch with reality. Our opportunity to vote for a party that understands real issues and tries to improve the quality life here has never been greater.
Perfectly and eloquently stated.
“I’ll shut down the government in order to get election security.” is one of the most scariest statements I’ve heard in quite some time. Translate, if I don’t like the results I’ll declare martial law?
This crackpot Jensen is simply mirroring the anti-democratic machinations and intentions that can be seen in Repub-controlled states like GA and FL. The “thinking” apparently is that Walz used emergency powers to combat a pandemic, so they think a governor has the power to do the same if he doesn’t like how some election is being run by county officials.
This is what comes of deciding that silly unqualified extremists should be placed in high office.
In a race of fools, attention seekers, and blowhards, the weakest wins. Congrats on picking the one issue trick pony, 2 years after the one issue has faded from the public eye.
Good for Jensen, I mean who doesn’t love a Medical Doctor who rejects science? I wonder if this Qualls dude made his comment about least racist country before or after that White Supremacist drove three and a half hours to Buffalo New York just so he could shoot black folks. 10 People died. Republicans, the party of Ridiculousness.
Scott Jensen won because he got national attention for stating common sense approaches to COViD. Jensen, being a Doctor, had a platform to complain about the CDC and hospital protocols that sent patients home until they couldn’t breath, then go to the emergency room. You didn’t need to be a Doc to figure that one out. Other than his COViD position, Jensen has been Democrat lite his whole political career.
If the State of Minnesota is going to pull itself out of this tailspin, it will take a tough stance on crime, taxes, education and growing our economic engine. I much preferred Qualls because his platform was changing things. Unfortunately I think Jensen is Dem lite and won’t push hard enough in areas that need change.
That is why Minnesota is Minnesota, Dem lite is the best you can do.
Yes indeed. If only we were Mississippi. Or Alabama. Then we could really pull out of the tailspin!
If only we were Mississippi. Or Alabama. –We are, when it comes to achievement gaps.
Aww, did you get a sad because your favorites didn’t win?
God bless you, Joe, for living in the hellhole that is Minnesota. What’s really scary is that Scott Jensen’s comments and stances aren’t enough to satisfy a good segment of the whackos in the Republican party and he’s still a “Democrat lite” to them.
Mike and folks, Minnesota is not what it used to be. Education went from top tier to below middle of the pack, at a 9.8% highest tax rate successful folks (corporations) will leave, Twin Cities having a crime spree that is ravaging downtown, Lefties hate logging and mining, add into the mix that Minnesota led the country in LTC deaths due to policy. It is not time for Dem Lite, it is time for change. Having a school teacher as Governor didn’t work, we need a strong leader.
The Edenic Minnesota you talk about was the Minnesota that operated before partisan politics (legislative elections were nonpartisan until 1974), and it was when there was less daylight between the two parties than there is now. Cranky old conservatives existed, but they were a decided minority in our political sphere. The Conservatives/Republicans, for the most part, were figures who would be called “Dem lite” or “RINOs” now.
You are longing for a time you would hate to have replicated today.
Kendall Qualls: “This is the least racist country in the world. And this is the least racist time in American history.”
I wonder if he’s seen the headlines this morning – the one about a white 18 year old, heavily armed, and armored killing Black people because they were Black.
I’m sure these Republican dimwits will provide lots of cover to this killer, telling us to wait until all the facts are out before making judgement, or some nonsense. Imma guess here, but the families of those killed likely think differently than Qualls and his claim.
And this is who some in the party want as a leader. Morally vacuous and entirely bereft of humanity, but they put on a good clown show.
To be fair, “this is the least racist time in American history” does set the bar awfully low.
“telling us to wait until all the facts are out before making judgement, or some nonsense.” Yeah, that’s nonsense.
One has to wonder about repub land today and it’s inanity and incompatible relationship with democracy.
We are around 1 Million dead due to the pandemic and lack of being safe by repubs, enabled by this medical doctor who ignored completely his medical training by undermining safe during a pandemic.
He should lose his medical license.
Like many, I am not overly happy with the Democratic party, however the comments made by the endorsed Republicans makes it a no go for Jensen. I can put up with the covid rants, but the stolen election, no. These conventions just churn out more nonsense for both parties.
Incompetent. Virus variants are incubating in the unvaxed and making us all more prone to illness and death. Thanks!!
I was hoping Kendall Qualls would get the nomination. His experience and message is exactly what this race-obsessed society needs. Maybe he’ll run in the primary.
That you could post this as serious comment after the race-based mass murder and gun mayhem in Buffalo demonstrates some rather willful blindness.
I’m really curious, where were you guys when ol’ Kendall was getting thrashed by Dean Phillips last go round? I mean, did you forget that he wasnt even an also ran?
Sounds like a real circus.
And like a circus, it has delivered an anti-vax clown as the star of the show. But one really can’t be surprised that the MN GOP has opted for an anti-science crackpot as its standard-bearer, and an MD at that. As the national party devolves, so devolves the state.
What’s important to understand is that the MN GOP are presenting the state with a gubernatorial candidate whose entire focus (indeed, purpose) is the airing of grievance; here, grievance over how a responsible governor worked to combat the first deadly pandemic in over a hundred years. And the grievance (incredibly) revolves around that governor’s strategy of simply following the clear recommendations of the CDC, and the state’s professional epidemiologists. A governor that simply followed the same course of action followed by every other responsible (Blue) state.
So, in short, the entire idea behind this crackpot’s “campaign” is to “punish” Walz for following the recommendations of those in the crackpot’s (supposed) profession. Looking forward/not backward, eh, Dr Scott? Now get out there and combat medical science, in the 21st Century, no less! The Party of Ideas, in all its splendor…
BTW, conservatives do not need to be very creative to win elections in 2022, best tag line for GOP is “we are not Democrats”. Looking at polls and the right track, wrong track for America, conservatives need to promise a change. Not that hard to see!
“Joe,” you will be surprised/dismayed to learn that, outside of your focus group most voters are not reflexive in deciding how to pull the lever, They will actually want to know where the candidate they are voting for stands on the issues. They will not vote for the Raving Loonie Party just to avoid DFL cooties.
The problem the Republican Party has is that at some point they have to run a candidate. I am not optimistic about the 2022 campaign but one thing that limits my pessimism about the 2022 election is the awfulness of the Republican candidates.
Emmer was too conservative for this state, so the Republicans doubled down & endorsed Jensen. Huh?
“…If the State of Minnesota is going to pull itself out of this tailspin, it will take a tough stance on crime, taxes, education and growing our economic engine.” As usual, Mr. Smith provides no context, no Republican program (to my knowledge, there is no Republican program beyond “lower taxes”), no specifics as to what is to be done, or how. What constitutes a “tough stance” on crime? Plenty of research shows that longer sentences don’t work, so what’s Joe’s next idea? What constitutes a “tough stance” on taxes? The Republican position is to reduce the state’s income just when things begin to get expensive due to pandemic, war, and / or other factors over which he has no control. What constitutes a “tough stance” on education? Lower pay? Get rid of the teacher’s union? How will teacher pay be decided then? Finally what constitutes a “tough stance” on growing our economic engine. State surpluses – without including federal pandemic mitigation money – would seem to indicate that the state’s economic engine is runnig pretty well. How would Mr. Smith improve it? Facile solutions to real problems are not helpful.
It saddens me that Republicans in Minnesota have stooped so low. This is the Trump base that’s now propelling conspiracy theory-following candidates to the state general election. It’s debatable whether they can prevail against sounder minds. We shall see…meanwhile, we pray for peace, justice, wisdom, and the solid future of our democratic republic.