Kendall Qualls wins GOP endorsement for governor

DULUTH – Army veteran and former health care executive Kendall Qualls won the endorsement for governor from Republican activists gathered for the GOP state convention Saturday, beating House Speaker Lisa Demuth after 10 rounds of voting.

If nominated, he’ll be the first Black major party candidate for governor in state history. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is the likely DFL nominee.

Qualls called for unity: “Now is the time to remind everyone what our first Republican president said on the field of Gettysburg: That a house divided cannot stand,” Qualls said. “If we’re going to win, we got to win as a united Republican Party.”

He then framed the race as a spiritual rather than mere electoral contest, closing out his remarks with a prayer: “We need armies of angels to come to this state,” he said. “We’ve been under a dark cloud for years. We ask that You lift it.”

Demuth declined to comment on her future plans, despite having previously pledged to abide by the party endorsement. The convention was marred by alleged voting irregularities — malfunctioning voting devices set off a heated debate among delegates of the self-described “party of election integrity” on how to proceed.

Demuth seemed to leave open the possibility of continuing on to the Aug. 11 primary.

If Demuth continues on by citing the flawed convention, that would set up a primary along with pillow mogul and 2020 conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, as well as less-known candidates John Krhin and Phillip Parrish. The questions about the voting threaten to set up a bitter primary that would exhaust resources and leave the party divided going into a difficult midterm environment, with President Donald Trump’s sagging approval ratings already dragging down the party.

In Klobuchar, the eventual GOP nominee will face the state’s senior senator, most accomplished vote-getter and the beneficiary of millions in fundraising already. Outside groups are expected to spend millions more on her behalf. Klobuchar was endorsed during the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party convention in Rochester this weekend after fending off a challenge from the left.

For the first four rounds of delegate voting, Demuth led, with Qualls closely behind. Qualls overtook Demuth on the fifth round of voting, when pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell was dropped after a third-place finish.

That’s when things took a turn: After the sixth round, five hours after voting began, delegates were interrupted by the revelation that some voting devices had malfunctioned in the fifth and sixth rounds, setting off a lengthy dive into Robert’s Rules of Order — for example, a vote to “suspend the rules to amend the rules to remove any motions or other business to be out of order” — that centered on whether to proceed with an endorsement or, after the monthslong endorsement process, leave the convention without endorsing a candidate.

Demuth, who had 41.6% of the vote, called into question the validity of the votes for the entire day. Qualls, who was in the lead at 55.8% and needed less than 5 more percentage points to win, advocated for continuing the endorsement.

Republicans did their best to make it fun: The earlier rounds of voting were interspersed with a kiss cam and a dance cam, a suited man on the DJ decks trying to hype up delegates who were mostly sitting or milling around by the third hour of voting (“We can use the walkways as a dance aisle!”), and increasingly animated speeches from candidates with a steady stream of Bible verses.

After many hours of voting and politicking, however, the DJ, probably sensing the increasingly agitated and tired mood of the crowd, stopped his calls for dancing henceforth.

Qualls gradually improved his haul before capturing the necessary 60% on the 10th ballot. Republicans endorsed former Navy Seal Adam Schwarze for U.S. Senate Friday, after which retired sportscaster Michele Tafoya said she’ll go on to a primary. The more than 2,000 delegates also endorsed Tad Jude for secretary of state, Ron Schutz for attorney general and Nate George for state auditor.

Demuth vs. Qualls

The candidates were largely in agreement over policy issues and beliefs, instead distinguishing themselves by their experience in government — or lack thereof — and backstories.

Demuth walked the line between being experienced enough to hit the ground running “on Day 1” as governor, but not experienced enough to be a “career politician” like Klobuchar. Demuth first joined the state House in 2019 and quickly rose in party leadership, becoming the minority House leader in 2023 and House speaker in 2025.

Qualls, a perennial candidate who has run for an office three times since 2020 but has yet to win an election, touts himself as a “political outsider.” He also frequently retells his up-by-the-bootstraps story to argue that Black people aren’t impeded by systemic racism.

The last time Minnesotans voted for a Republican governor was Tim Pawlenty’s re-election in 2006; the last Republican senator was Norm Coleman, who was elected in 2002. The quintessential Republican gubernatorial candidate’s refrain is to insist that they will be the one to break the 20-year spell.

Delegates were optimistic that this year could actually be the year, because of the “climate of fraud and corruption and mismanagement of the government,” said Matt Benda, 56, an attorney from Albert Lea. Revelations of fraud in Minnesota’s public programs have plagued Gov. Tim Walz’s tenure and drawn national scrutiny to Minnesota’s state government, leading Walz to drop his bid for a third term.

“I think people are so frustrated with the government taking money out of their pocketbooks,” said Benda, who supported Qualls, saying that his approach of addressing fraud “from the outside” is preferable.

Qualls has criticized the Legislature’s creation of a new Office of Inspector General to combat fraud: “Only in government do you add more government to something that someone should have been doing in the first place.”

Demuth, in an interview with the Reformer, said that Qualls’ criticism is an example of his being “a ‘perfect person’ that has no experience — just giving an opinion.”

“I don’t look at (the Office of Inspector General) as growing government,” said Demuth, who has presided over a deadlocked 67-67 House since last year. “I look at it as the accountability that will have a return on investment when we finally stop fraud.”

Qualls’ chosen running mate, businessman Brian Nicholson, has faced lawsuits challenges over alleged malfeasance, including failure to pay his bills.

Jim Engebretson, 67, a retired USPS carrier technician from Bloomington, donned a Demuth/Wilson — Ryan Wilson being Demuth’s lieutenant governor — button, several other buttons and a red, white and blue string of lights. He said he supported Demuth because he liked that she had “gone up against Gov. Walz in the last session with the divided house.”

Democrats, gun control activists and Demuth’s own daughter have sharply criticized her for blocking a vote on a gun safety bill that included a ban on so-called assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The bill had passed the DFL-controlled Senate, and gun control activists — including parents of the two children killed in the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church — pushed Demuth to allow the entire House to vote on it. In the end, Demuth didn’t allow a vote to take place on the House floor, arguing that House committees had already rejected the bill.

To Republican convention-goers, she framed herself as the leader of the anti-gun control fight in the Legislature, instead of as a House speaker merely following procedures.

Lindell continues to primary

Lindell was deemed “qualified with reservations” to receive the nomination, in part due to what the nomination committee said were financial irregularities. He used the status as proof of his true outsiderness, echoing the anti-establishment rhetoric of Trump, who said in December that Lindell “deserves to be governor of Minnesota.”

“Shame on them for telling you I’m tainted because of a bankruptcy. We’ve never been bankrupt,” Lindell said in a speech to delegates. His companies haven’t gone bankrupt, but he declared personal bankruptcy in 2003, calling it a “fake bankruptcy” to avoid a lawsuit, in a convoluted tale unspooled in his memoir.

(Conveniently for your correspondent, Lindell’s book, “What are the Odds? From Crackhead to CEO,” was scattered about the convention center, including on top of a trash can. Lindell has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his campaign money buying copies of his own memoir, which Engebretson, the Demuth-supporting delegate, said was indicative of poor spending.)

More recently, he’s spent millions of dollars promoting baseless claims about widespread election fraud, and said in court testimony last summer that he was $10 million in debt.

Lindell, who received 22% of delegate votes in the third round against Demuth and Qualls, after the other three candidates had been dropped, said that he’ll continue onto the primary as to not “let the people down.”

“I mean, this is complete establishment, deep-state swamp,” he said, gesturing to the entire convention. “We’ve been losing for 24 years because of this.”

He was close, but it’s actually been 20 years since a Republican won a statewide race.

A moment of silence for Derek Chauvin

The convention day began at 9 a.m. with a prayer from Father Richard Kunst of Duluth that the adopted platform of the party “promotes true, good, conservative values, fiscally and socially,” followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

A delegate then called for a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020 and is in prison. State Rep. Danny Nadeau, R-Rogers, led a 10-second moment of silence after taking an informal vote.

Monday was the sixth anniversary of Floyd’s death.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.