GOP candidates speak at Owatonna forum

The field of challengers hoping to unseat incumbent Gov. Tim Walz continues to grow – and nine of them made their way to Owatonna last week for a GOP candidate forum.

Hosted by the Steele County Republican Party, the Dec. 2 event included Lisa Demuth, Scott Jensen, Jeff Johnson, Brad Kohler, Phillip Knight, John Krhin, Phillip Parrish, Kendall Qualls and Kristin Robbins.

Attorney Chris Madel, who entered the race the day before, did not attend. Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, filed his paperwork the day after.

Following a meet-and-greet with the candidates, nearly 150 people settled in to weigh the answers provided during a round-robin question-and-answer session moderated by John Havelka.

How would you show leadership to help prevent fraud and keep Minnesotans from leaving our state?

Demuth, who is Minnesota’s Speaker of the House, said she would make sure “each commissioner is held responsible for the work done within their agency; that is something we have not seen.”

Robbins, a state representative from District 37A, also vowed to hold commissioners accountable.

“We need a no fraud, no excuses culture,” Robbins said.

She is chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, as well as the co-chair of the bipartisan, bicameral Civility Caucus, which works to build relationships and trust across parties and between the legislative chambers.

Both women support an independent Office of Inspector General for the state.

They – and the other candidates – also suggested periodic audits, as well as reducing taxes and mandates on businesses, especially small businesses.

The topic of taxes came up repeatedly, with a focus on lowering or eliminating business tax, income tax, property tax, gas tax and sales tax.

The real issue, Qualls said, is that “we don’t want to keep (businesses) here; we want them to want to stay here. We’ve got to motivate them … and create an environment here where our businesses thrive, unleashing the economic engine of the private sector.”

Parrish, who has had a career in education, called the fraud found in the state’s social services programs “organized crime.”

He claims he “blew the whistle” on the $250 million daycare fraud in 2018 and has filed a RICO referral with the federal government.

“I’m not waiting to take office,” Parrish said. “I have a plan that is going to start ending fraud before I even take office.”

If you could sign two new bills (or change existing laws), what would they be?

Demuth drew applause with her proposal to end taxes on Social Security; she also plans to sign a law for “better local control, less mandates on our schools … to allow them to educate the kids on the basics: reading, writing and math.”

Jensen, the Republican gubernatorial candidate who lost to Walz in 2022, said he would pass a “Never Again” bill. He spoke of Walz’s decisions to lock down schools, nursing homes, businesses and more during the COVID-19 pandemic:

“We failed in 2020 to stop Tim Walz, and the insanity went on for literally two years,” Jensen said, adding frequently throughout the night that he “says the quiet thing out loud.”

He would also address term limits.

Robbins echoed Jensen’s “never again” sentiment, saying her first two bills would be to require a voter ID and to limit the governor’s emergency powers.

Both Kohler and Johnson said they would “bring back” the former Minnesota state flag; Johnson said we would also “get rid of DEI immediately” with an executive order.

Knight, a food company CEO, plans to focus on tax and regulatory reform for economic growth, as well as a law to institute literacy-based performance for third-graders and beyond.

How do we raise student test scores?

Kohler, a former UFC fighter, claimed “teachers are running wild with whatever they want to teach our kids … we need to prosecute some of these teachers … and the administration for allowing them to do it.”

Jensen took the opposite tack, saying “we, as a party, need to do a better job of respecting teachers.”

The three-legged stool analogy applies, he said, and must include teachers, students and parents working together.

Additionally, Jensen said, “we have been guilty of overselling college at the expense of all other options. We need to elevate the trades.”

Robbins said the state has “failed our kids, so the first thing we need to do is undo all the unfunded mandates… The most important thing the governor can do is give schools flexibility to use their funding how they want, and then empower teachers.”

Knight agreed with the removal of mandates; he also supports school choice.

Krhin, who spoke often of his faith, said the state “needs to make public education like it was in the (19)20s and 30s, when my father served on the school board.”

The superintendent “would have an employee fired if they were smoking on school grounds,” he said.

Parrish said the largest demographic at his events are teachers and state employees who “want to be whistleblowers, but they’re not quite ready to put their name on the whistleblowing document.”

A mindset change is needed, he said.

“Stop being afraid of these intellectually and morally broken people,” Parrish said. “They’ve gone too far and their own employees are coming to us, saying ‘enough is enough.’”

What makes you the best candidate?

Robbins capitalized on the fact that she has been elected four times in a purple district.

“I’m qualified, I have the experience, and I know how to win in a tough district,” she said. “Greater Minnesota is going to carry this election, but if I bring up our numbers in the suburbs and urban areas, that’s how we put together a statewide winning race.”

Qualls, who was also a candidate in 2022 before ceding the nomination to Jensen, stressed down-ballot performance.

He claimed Education Minnesota, the state teachers’ union, “had a cake to celebrate my defeat, because they felt I was the only candidate they would be concerned about on the ballot.”

Knight believes he can “win the middle” and be the candidate with “the conviction to make the hard decisions to peel away decades of bad policy and deliver for the people of Minnesota.”

Krihn, who describes himself as a Constitutional Conservative, said he is going to be “the most pro-life governor that Minnesota has ever seen.”

He plans to go “into the heart of the Somali communities to address … what citizenship is really about…”

Parrish acknowledged the others as “a wonderful team … that will come together and form a unified front,” but said he “outworks them, outwrites them” and has out-planned them.

Wearing a purple tie, he said, “is to tell you a message. This isn’t about left and right anymore. This is about right and wrong, period.”

Johnson, who “stood alone on refugee resettlement” while on the St. Cloud City Council, said he has “that bulldog attitude that wants to do the right thing.”

Demuth championed her record at the state legislature, including the negotiation of a $5 billion reduction in state spending and the end of “illegal immigrant taxpayer funded health insurance.”

Kohler said he has been spending a lot of time in “the areas that we’re very blue in,” including attending Black churches and Hmong festivals, and visiting with Vietnamese and Cambodian communities.

Jensen had a litany of descriptors about himself, but focused on the fact that he “plays offense” and builds consensus.

As a state senator from 2017-21, all seven of his sponsored bills passed unanimously, “because I went to every Democrat and I told them why I was doing it, and why (they) should vote for it.

“That’s who I am.”

About the race

The 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial election is Nov. 3.

The filing period runs from May 19 through 5 p.m. June 2.

Walz is hoping to be elected for a third term, something no Minnesota governor has done since the adoption of four-year terms in 1962.