Minnesota lawmakers, donors urge Amy Klobuchar to run for governor

Amy Klobuchar has reached an inflection point.

After two decades in Congress, her party is in the minority and there are few opportunities to rise up the ranks in Senate leadership. While Klobuchar hasn’t slammed the door on another run for the White House, the field could be crowded in 2028.

Now, with Gov. Tim Walz dropping his bid for a third term, Democratic lawmakers and prominent donors are encouraging Klobuchar to jump into the race, a decision that could fundamentally reorient the race in ways that would reverberate in Minnesota and Washington.

“She’s the first choice of just about every major donor I know,” longtime Democratic donor Vance Opperman said. “She would be an ideal governor, she’s not too far left, not too far right, she’s a real Minnesotan. I hope she runs.”

Klobuchar’s campaign declined to comment for this story, but a person close to the senator says she is being encouraged to run and is seriously considering it.

It’s not the first time her name has been floated for the job.

Last summer, when Walz was wavering on whether he would run for an unprecedented third term, many Minnesota Democrats believed Klobuchar would step up if Walz decided not to seek re-election.

“I have been in politics and public service long enough to know that hypotheticals aren’t a good idea,” Klobuchar said during an interview at the Minnesota State Fair in late August.

Walz launched his re-election campaign in September but dropped out Jan. 5 as a massive social service fraud scandal engulfed the state. Federal prosecutors have documented hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fraud in state autism, housing and meals programs, among others. The total scope of the theft could be billions of dollars, according to federal prosecutors.

With the focus on how to tackle fraud in Minnesota, some Democrats think Klobuchar’s experience as Hennepin County attorney will help in the crackdown on the multi-headed social services fraud that Republicans have made the centerpiece of their 2026 campaigns.

“She will know exactly what to do about the fraud problem,” Former U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, who led prosecutions against the pandemic-era Feeding Our Future fraud, said in an interview. “She will take it on forcefully, and effectively, and we will not have this problem going forward.”

Other Democrats are also singing Klobuchar’s praises in the hopes of nudging her toward the governor’s race.

Klobuchar, who outperformed Harris-Walz at the top of the ticket in 2024 and has proven she can win parts of greater Minnesota, won a fourth term to the U.S. Senate that year.

“She’s somebody that Greater Minnesota trusts,” said state Sen. Grant Hauschild, one of the lone DFLers to represent a largely rural district.

He recently hosted a town hall in Ely, which he said was dominated by conversation of Klobuchar running for governor.

Klobuchar will face other challenges as a candidate, including a long record in Washington and as a prosecutor. Some of those issues were raised during her 2020 presidential bid, including concerns from more progressive Democrats about cases she prosecuted against people of color.

Republicans have said they still think she and any other Democrat will have to answer for the fraud cases in the state.

Klobuchar has been mulling her political future for months. Some paths, from potentially moving up in Senate leadership or running again for president, could prove to be tricky.

She paid a visit to New Hampshire over the summer — a key presidential proving ground and where she took third place in the 2020 caucuses — and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of running for president. But chatting with voters at the State Fair last summer, Klobuchar acknowledged to one supporter that the Democratic field for the White House in 2028 will likely be crowded.

She’s currently the No. 3 Senate Democrat, but moving up in leadership could also be difficult. Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz recently locked up support to be the next Senate majority whip and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer remains in the top leadership spot.

Rising up to the No. 1 leadership spot could take several years, said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau, who previously worked for longtime Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“I think that losing somebody with the institutional knowledge and the pragmatism and the demeanor of an Amy Klobuchar would be bad for the Senate. That being said, it is certainly not the same Senate that she started in,” Mollineau said. “It is a much colder, meaner place with less opportunities to work in a bipartisan manner.”

Other Democrats argue that running for governor could position her well for a 2028 presidential run.

“Democratic governors are developing great resumes because they’re not trapped in a super partisan Senate,” said Drew Littman, a former chief of staff to former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken. “The governor’s mansion is a better launching pad if you want to run for president.”

Whatever she decides, Klobuchar’s colleague in the U.S. Senate, retiring Sen. Tina Smith, said she expects Klobuchar will “move pretty quickly,” on any possible decision.