Gov. Mark Dayton said Friday evening that he would announce his lieutenant governor pick for his re-election bid early next week.
The DFL governor said his decision would not be announced on Monday but that it would come before he goes to the Mayo Clinic for surgery on his ailing hip on Thursday.
Dayton said that he had discussed the possibility of being lieutenant governor with state Sen. Katie Sieben. Sieben said on Friday that she would not be Dayton's running mate.
He would not name any others with whom he had similar discussions.
"I'm not really not going to go into the internal dynamics," Dayton said.
The governor said on TPT's Almanac show that gender balance was a consideration as he looked at possible candidates.
Having a female running mate, he said after the show, is "an important statement of, certainly, my values and priorities."
Tony Sertich, a former Minnesota House Majority Leader who now leads the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, had oft been mentioned as a top prospect but would not provide that gender balance. Tina Smith, Dayton's chief of staff and another person widely considered a potential candidate, would but would bring no geographic diversity since she's from Minneapolis.
Asked about Smith as his possible pick, Dayton said: "It's a possibility."
But then he went on: "Tony Sertich is a possibility," Dayton said.
"Matt's a possibility," he said referring with a laugh to his spokesman Matt Swenson, who was standing nearby. "Stay tuned."
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