Sen. Amy Klobuchar cruised to the Minnesota Democratic gubernatorial nomination Tuesday, pledging to clean up a fraud scandal that federal prosecutors say could cost taxpayers more than $9 billion, a mess that built on her own party's watch.
Klobuchar, who failed to gain traction in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary before dropping out and endorsing Joe Biden, won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party contest in a landslide. The Washington Examiner reported she took 89.1 percent of the vote, winning by roughly 85 percentage points over a field of long-shot challengers.
She now advances to a November general election against Republican nominee Lisa Demuth, the Minnesota House Speaker who defeated a seven-candidate GOP field that included Trump-endorsed MyPillow founder Mike Lindell. The race will test whether a Democrat can hold the governor's mansion after years of fraud allegations that have made Minnesota a national symbol of government waste and failed oversight.
The fraud at the center of this race is staggering in scale. Federal prosecutors have said the fraud involving Minnesota government programs could end up costing taxpayers more than $9 billion. Outgoing Gov. Tim Walz's administration faced intense criticism over its handling of the schemes, which involved social services and Medicaid programs. Walz testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on March 4, 2026, at a hearing examining alleged misuse of federal funds for those programs.
Walz announced earlier this year that he would not seek another term, a decision that opened the door for Klobuchar. She announced her candidacy in January, and by May she had rolled out governing priorities built around accountability and fraud prevention.
Her campaign published a policy document titled "Make Government Accountable and Root out Fraud," which promised "immediate action to root out fraud" and called "fixing the government" the "foundation of everything we need to do." Klobuchar pledged a "top-to-bottom audit" of state government beginning on day one.
As Fox News reported, Klobuchar outlined her overhaul plan on Sunday in a local television appearance and told voters in May:
"You are right to be angry about the fraud. It is unacceptable and it must end."
That message carried the primary. But it also raises an obvious question: Democrats have controlled the governor's office in Minnesota since January 2011, when former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty left office. The fraud didn't happen in a vacuum. It grew under Democratic leadership, in programs Democrats administered, with oversight Democrats were responsible for providing. Klobuchar now asks voters to trust the same party, her party, to fix what it failed to prevent.
Across the country, questions about election integrity and government accountability have become central to how voters evaluate candidates. Minnesota's fraud scandal puts those concerns in sharp relief.
Newsmax reported that Demuth earned 44.1 percent of the Republican vote, compared to 31.3 percent for Lindell. Her win surprised Democrats who had expected Trump's endorsement to carry the primary for Lindell. Demuth is the first Black woman to serve as Minnesota House Speaker, a distinction that complicates the left's usual framing of Republican candidates.
Demuth wasted no time drawing a contrast with Klobuchar. She told reporters she is "the best one poised to take over, win this primary, and finally defeat Amy Klobuchar." She also took aim at Klobuchar's record directly:
"When you look at her voting record and who she supported, she is not good for Minnesota going forward."
Republicans have not won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006, which makes Demuth's path historically steep. But the fraud scandal gives the GOP its strongest opening in years. Voters who might normally default to the Democratic column now have a $9 billion reason to reconsider.
Klobuchar, for her part, has tried to put distance between herself and Walz. She told reporters she would "obviously" do things differently than the outgoing governor, noting they have "different backgrounds" and would have "some different focuses." That framing treats the scandal as a matter of style rather than systemic Democratic failure, a distinction voters may or may not accept.
The same night Klobuchar won the gubernatorial primary, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Democratic Senate primary in a rout, defeating centrist Rep. Angie Craig with 58.8 percent of the vote to Craig's 39.7 percent. The New York Post reported the Associated Press called the race at 11:27 p.m. ET.
Flanagan campaigned on progressive priorities including "Medicare for all," ending U.S. aid to Israel, and, in a phrase that speaks for itself, vowing to "rip ICE apart" in response to federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. She is the progressive wing's candidate in a state where the progressive wing already held the governor's mansion during a $9 billion fraud scandal.
Klobuchar has not resigned from the U.S. Senate while campaigning for governor. Her current term does not expire until January 2031. If she wins in November and vacates the seat, the question of who fills it becomes another piece of the political puzzle in a state Democrats have dominated for nearly two decades.
Instances of questionable Democratic Party practices in elections have drawn scrutiny in other states as well, adding to a broader pattern of accountability concerns within the party.
Klobuchar has represented Minnesota in the Senate since 2007. Before that, she served as Hennepin County attorney, the top prosecutor's job in the county that includes Minneapolis. Born in Plymouth, Minnesota, she has deep roots in the state. None of that insulated her from a failed presidential run in 2020, and none of it will insulate her from the fraud question in November.
Her campaign has secured the endorsement of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and her 89-point primary margin suggests unified Democratic support. But primaries and general elections are different animals. In a general election, she will have to answer not just for her own plans but for the party's record, a record that includes a governor who testified before Congress about alleged misuse of federal funds and a fraud tab that federal prosecutors say is still climbing.
The broader national conversation about federal oversight of state programs will likely shape how voters outside Minnesota view this race, too. When billions in federal dollars go missing, it stops being a local story.
Meanwhile, debates over election administration and voting procedures continue to play out at the national level, underscoring how much trust in government institutions matters heading into November.
Demuth enters the general election as an underdog by historical standards. But she carries a simple, powerful argument: the people who let $9 billion in fraud happen should not be rewarded with a promotion. Whether that argument breaks through in a state that hasn't elected a Republican governor in fifteen years will say a great deal about whether accountability still matters to voters, or whether party loyalty trumps everything.
Klobuchar promises to audit the mess. Voters will have to decide whether the party that made the mess deserves the contract to clean it up.