Lisa Demuth Wins Minnesota GOP Governor Primary

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth won the Republican governor primary on Tuesday and will advance to the November general election, where she will face the Democratic nominee in the race to replace Gov. Tim Walz. The Minnesota governor primary gave Demuth a clear path after a hard-fought contest that tested whether legislative experience or outside backing would carry the day.

Demuth’s win is a major boost for a candidate who stayed in the race even after losing the party endorsement to Kendall Qualls at the state convention. Qualls earned that backing after 10 ballots, but Demuth argued that her time leading House Republicans and working in the Legislature made her the stronger general election choice. She also defeated MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, who had President Donald Trump’s endorsement and the benefit of national name recognition.

Speaking at her election-night watch party in St. Paul, Demuth cast the result as a call for change. “There is hope for Minnesota, for the change that is so desperately needed,” she told Fox News Digital. She said voters were frustrated by fraud and wanted “hope, and change that is desperately needed, reducing taxes and improving education, and ending that fraud” as the main message going forward.

The race changed sharply in January when Walz ended his reelection bid and said he wanted to spend his final year in office focused on combating fraud in state programs rather than defending his political future. His exit came only months after he launched his campaign for a third term, and it turned the governor’s race into a wide-open fight on both parties’ terms. Republicans quickly seized on the fraud issue, making it a central line of attack against Walz and his administration.