Early voting starts 10 days from now in Minnesota. Yes, as early as June 24, you can cast a ballot in the Primary Election that will narrow down the candidate fields. On August 9 we will decide who the final two candidates will be in non-partisan races, such as those for Hennepin County Attorney and Hennepin County Sheriff.
It is important that you vote in the Primary on these races to ensure that we have a conservative candidate on the ballot in November. We urge you to vote for retired Judge Tad Jude for Hennepin County Attorney and Bloomington Police Officer Jai Hansen for Hennepin County Sheriff.
The Primary Election on August 9 also decides the party candidates that will go on to the November ballot in partisan races. In Minnesota, the political parties have the power to endorse candidates in conventions of grass-roots delegates. If Republican candidates committed to abide by this process and file for office only if endorsed, this would allow our candidates to focus on the November election without the distraction of an intra-party fight in the months leading up to the Primary.
The Republican endorsed state-wide candidates are:
Governor/Lt. Governor: Scott Jensen/Matt Birk
Secretary of State: Kim Crockett
Attorney General: Jim Schultz
State Auditor: Ryan Wilson
The State Auditor race, a partisan race, is not showing on the sample Primary ballot as published by Sec of State. Note that, confusingly, a similarly-named, non-conservative, candidate is running opposite Tad Jude for Hennepin County Attorney.
This year, virtually all of the Republican candidates for state-wide office promised to abide by the endorsement process, although the Primary ballot still shows a handful of candidates for each office as “Republican” who did not seek endorsement; thus the Primary.
Doug Wardlow, who sought endorsement, promised that he would abide by the process in the MN Attorney General race. Doug Wardlow did not win the GOP endorsement for Attorney General at the May State Convention in Rochester. He broke his promise and filed to run anyway. SD50’s Larry Frost addressed his OpEd below directly to Doug Wardlow.
