Tim Walz (DFL; incumbent)
Michelle Benson (R)
Paul Gazelka (R)
Scott Jensen (R)
Mike Murphy (R)
Neil Shah (R)
I’m not sure if interesting is the right adjective, but it is one way to describe it. Let’s ask ourselves a question: how much do we really remember from before March of 2020? Probably not a lot. And for now, it seems like 2020 will be the year that is most salient to voters going to the ballot box in 2022. COVID, the murder of George Floyd, police reform, environmental issues such as a near historical drought in 2021, the Keystone Pipeline, and the increasing partisanship our nation is dealing with. All of these make it even more difficult to predict what will happen in 2022 (as we have seen with recent polling being average at best, primarily after 2016).
So, what does this mean for 2022? The easiest answer is I have no clue. Walz continues to poll decent; according to a poll done by SurveyUSA, Walz has an approval rating of ~55%/41%, with a +/- of 4.7%. Taking that at it’s most extreme, that’s still 50/46. While those are still positive numbers for Walz and his administration, this is a poll that’s 11 months removed from voting. Walz is also polling well against his announced opponents; citing SurveyUSA again, Walz is up double digits against every opponent thus far. Again, and I cannot stress this enough- we’re still 9 months away, and we are just now entering “campaign season”.
Benson, Gazelka, and Jensen are the only three of the five with prior office experience; both Murphy and Shah do not have experience in the public sector. As we have seen, prior political experience isn’t necessarily important, but name recognition is; it will be interesting to see if Murphy and Shah can generate name recognition to rival the aforementioned candidates!