Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., announced her bid for Minnesota governor on Thursday morning.
Klobuchar enters the race as Minnesota has been in the national spotlight in recent weeks after the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers, which has intensified public demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Large deployments of officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been targeting the Twin Cities.
The announcement comes after Democratic Gov. Tim Walz unexpectedly ended his bid for a third term earlier this month amid mounting pressure in the state over an alleged day care fraud scandal. Walz cited the intense political landscape and challenges facing Minnesota as reasons for his decision to drop his campaign.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Klobuchar said in her video announcement. “These times call for leaders who can stand up and not be rubber stamps of this administration, but who are also willing to find common ground and fix things in our state. These times call for grit and resilience.”
Klobuchar, 65, cited several instances of deadly violence in her state over the summer, including the killing of Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church that killed two children and injured more than a dozen others.
“We cannot sugarcoat how hard this is,” she said, “but in these moments of enormous difficulty, we find strength in our Minnesota values of hard work, freedom and simple decency and goodwill.”
Klobuchar filed paperwork with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board for a gubernatorial committee last week. In her roughly four-minute video, Klobuchar pledged unity and vowed to work across party lines to fulfill her agenda.
“I’ll stand up for what’s right and fix what’s wrong,” Klobuchar said, adding that she “will do my job without fear or favor. I’ve never shied away from taking on the powerful.”
Klobuchar is one of Minnesota’s most prominent Democratic figures. The four-term U.S. senator has deep roots in the state’s politics, first serving as a Hennepin County attorney before winning her Senate seat in 2006. Klobuchar had an unsuccessful Democratic presidential run in 2020, and later endorsed then-presidential candidate Joe Biden after suspending her campaign. She has maintained strong statewide appeal, easily winning reelection in 2024 with comfortable margins.
Klobuchar serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, among others.
She will face a lengthy list of Republicans who are vying for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, state Reps. Kristin Robbins and Peggy Bennett and former GOP gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls. But Republicans face an uphill battle in flipping the governor’s seat in the North Star State as the GOP hasn’t won statewide since former Gov. Tim Pawlenty won reelection in 2006.
Klobuchar’s Senate term does not expire until 2030. If she secures the nomination and wins in November, she would become the state’s first female governor.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at CNN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.