MN 2022 Gov Race Megathread

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/15/mike-lindell-mypillow-trump-white-house-martial-law

Aaaannnnnddddd he’s done.

My prediction now moves from lean D to likely D, and that’s assuming he survives the primaries.

Knowing the Republican party at this point, wouldn't be surprised if this helps him there.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/15/mike-lindell-mypillow-trump-white-house-martial-law

Aaaannnnnddddd he’s done.

My prediction now moves from lean D to likely D, and that’s assuming he survives the primaries.

Knowing the Republican party at this point, wouldn't be surprised if this helps him there.

The Democratic attack ads in the general are going to be brutal.

Oh no definitely, I meant the primary

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

I think the world of Mike Lindell.  He's a good and decent man.  I would hope he would not run for Governor.  He would be the most unfairly attacked candidate in history if he ran.

Tim Walz is an incompetent who refused to protect the citizens of Minneapolis from mobs when their local officials would not.  Unfortunately, I cannot see Mike Lindell defeating Walz at the polls.

Lindell is pretty obviously in support of the other mobs.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Just found this thread, thanks for the laughs.

I will just ignore the Pillow guy and just give my way to early thoughts on the race in general. Minnesota is turning in to a poor mans Illinois with Hennepin and Ramsey counties combined equaling Cook county with the suburbs tilting blue. If Republicans can't find a way to knock Walz down into the low 60's in Hennepin/Ramsey then it makes no difference what a Republican does outstate as there just are not enough available votes outside the Twin Cities metro.  For example Trump ran very strong in rural Minnesota, carrying 74 of the 87 counties statewide by a margin of 314,000 votes in those counties. Biden netted 327,000 from Hennepin county alone and I think Walz runs better than Biden in rural MN since that is home turf.

As I do in almost every MN thread I will leave you with a couple facts. No Republican has won statewide since T-Paw in 2006 and no Republican has gotten 50%+ of the vote statewide since Liberal Republican Arne Carlson in  1994.

I don't think its talked about enough that T-paw lost the primary in 2018. He still wouldn't have won but he could have helped the GOP in the statewide races... maybe even making Ellison's race closer

It wasn’t even a narrow loss, it was damn near 10 points and he only won 1 congressional district

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Haven’t seen anyone else talking about it, but the state GOP is in shambles due to sexual assault scandals.

It is beyond ugly. A major republican donor, Anton Lazzaro, was arrested for 6 counts of sex trafficking. Lazzaro also happens to be good friends with GOP chair Jennifer Carnahan, he attended her wedding to MN-01 congressman Jim Hagedorn and cohosted a podcast with her. Carnahan has also been accused of ignoring sexual harassment complaints, belittling and demeaning subordinates(some is on audio) especially young women, and of financial improprieties (She personally gets 10% of all money donated to the MN GOP). Oh and to top it off there audio floating around the internet of a drunken Carnahan at the RNC winter meetings (on Jan 6 no less) saying  that her husband, who has kidney cancer, will be dead in two years so oh well.

Oh and just to bring this back to Mike Lindell, Carnahan all but endorsed him last year.

Will Hagedorn's obvious close ties here hurt his chances of re-election?

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Latest poll from Change Research (D firm) released just last week shows Walz to be quite vulnerable actually:

Walz approval rating:
44% approve (Independents: 31%)
48% disapprove (Independents: 48%)

Voting intention:
Tim Walz (D-incumbent) 44%
Generic Republican 41%
(Walz +3% result)

Change Research (D)
08/28/21 - 08/31/21
N=1945

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kJVx9MGMRyi2O3Gl4Z4OG7ekb_D860bIpZWBsje73Yo/edit#gid=1849982607

Looks like Gazelka might not be such a fool after all

I'd put more stock in this poll if Generic Republican was an actual candidate and we weren't still a year out from the election.

Retired Gen. R'publican