MINNEAPOLIS—Minnesota is, ordinarily, a heavily Democratic Party state. No Republican currently holds state office, and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party controls both houses of the state Legislature.
It has provided a pipeline for national politics of progressive champions, such as former Vice President Walter Mondale, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and state Attorney General Keith Ellison. And recently, Vice President Kamala Harris picked Democrat Gov. Tim Walz, who has a long record of progressive legislative achievements, as her running mate for the 2024 presidential election.
Yet Minnesota’s politics may be changing.
The primary on Aug. 13 will decide Klobuchar’s challenger for the matchup.
Royce White
White is the populist favorite in the primary. His campaign has been endorsed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Republican Senate nominee Kari Lake of Arizona, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and InfoWars founder Alex Jones, among others.White has attracted controversy for his past statements regarding Jews and Israel that have been criticized by American Jewish groups as anti-Semitic.
White has denied being an anti-Semite and told The Epoch Times that he is being falsely accused.
“This has become a trope that people use when they when they can’t say anything else,” he said, adding that his comments have been about his view that “the Jewish identity ... is now being used to justify the expansion of a global government.”
Notably, White has raised only $132,721 for his campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Klobuchar, by contrast, has raised more than $18.9 million for her principal committee and more than $3.7 million for her political action committee.
“I don’t think he can win a general election,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told reporters in May.
White told The Epoch Times in response to the criticism from establishment figures that, “They said all of those things about Donald Trump ... many of them tried their hardest to make sure that Donald Trump was ousted in the Republican primary process because he was ‘unelectable.’”
Joe Fraser
Fraser, a former naval intelligence officer and banking executive, is running with the support of the state party establishment. He has been endorsed by the most recent Republicans elected statewide in Minnesota: former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who left office in 2011, and former U.S. Sens. Norm Coleman and Rudy Boschwitz.“We need the strongest candidate to win the Aug. 13th primary and Joe Fraser is by far that candidate,” Pawlenty, Coleman, and Boschwitz wrote in a joint statement.
Fraser’s campaign has largely focused on portraying White as unelectable against Klobuchar and damaging to other Republicans in competitive races.
“I am the only candidate who can defeat Amy Klobuchar and return Republican leadership back to our Senate seat,” Fraser wrote on Facebook.
“Minnesota has not elected a Republican Senator in more than 20 years and liberal incumbent Amy Klobuchar is no pushover,” the RJC wrote. “Control of the U.S. Senate is up for grabs and it’s essential that the GOP put forward the strongest possible candidates for every seat.”
Polls in Minnesota will open on Aug. 13 at 7 a.m. local time and close at 8 p.m.
The Fraser and Klobuchar campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.