WASHINGTON – Minnesota has a rare open Senate seat, which is tantalizing to state Republicans, even as some are hoping for a more robust field of candidates for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s Senate seat.
There are two major declared GOP candidates in the race, former NBA player Royce White and Adam Schwarze, a former Navy SEAL.
Although White has run for office before — most recently against Sen. Amy Klobuchar last year — he has not held political office. Neither has Schwarze.
White, who has caused controversies for comments on his podcast and interviews that have been called antisemitic and misogynistic, is a passionate critic of “establishment Republicans.” He is running as a disrupter who would challenge a “corrupt” U.S. Senate.
“I can’t count 10 (senators) whom I would actually trust,” White told MinnPost.
Although Schwarze hasn’t run for political office before, he thought about challenging Klobuchar last year. But he said Klobuchar’s popularity and centrist stance deterred him from taking her on.
“She’s very Minnesota,” Schwarze said of Klobuchar. So, he turned his attention to challenging Smith, who he says is too progressive for the state and, in his view, would have been more beatable.
But Smith decided to retire — setting up a political scramble in the state.
The opportunity to run for a rare open Senate seat may attract additional candidates. The only question is who?
“It’s very early in the process. Many candidates don’t want to announce until after the State Fair,” said Jill Vujovich-Laabs, acting political director of the Minnesota Republican Party.
A Republican has not held statewide office in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty won his second term as governor in 2006.
The Cook Political Report rates the open Minnesota seat “lean Democratic,” which does not put it out of reach for the GOP but will make the party’s candidate an underdog to whomever wins the Democratic primary.
The main Democratic candidates are Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, both of whom are amassing sizable war chests and have strong name recognition.
In some ways, the state’s Republican establishment is more interested in the governor’s race and in the chance to defeat Democratic Gov. Tim Walz if he decides to run for a third term than in helping Republicans keep control of the U.S. Senate.
But Vujovich-Laabs said GOP party activists are also watching and waiting to see who else will enter the race and compete for the party’s nomination when conventions are held in the spring.
“I know the delegates are looking forward to surveying all the candidates,” Vujovich-Laabs said.
A ‘wait-and-see’ attitude
Last month, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, gave a shout out to former NBA star Willie Burton during a GOP forum last month in Carver County, referring to the professional athlete as a possible candidate for Smith’s seat.
Burton, who was drafted out of the University of Minnesota by the Miami Heat, has said he’s thinking about running.
And there’s buzz in GOP circles about others who are eyeing a run, including Ryan Wilson, who unsuccessfully ran for state auditor in 2022 and state Rep. Kristin Roberts.
Tim Lindberg, University of Minnesota Morris political science professor, said “there’s probably a wait-and-see attitude” among other candidates who might be more competitive with whomever becomes the Democratic candidate in next year’s general election.
That’s especially true for those who are now holding elected office, and don’t want to risk being out of a job if they lose the Senate race, he said.
Lindberg also said those Republican candidates are weighing the lure of a rare open U.S. Senate seat against political currents that may not favor them.
One is that the party in control of the White House generally loses seats in Congress in midterm elections, Lindberg said.
Another reason to be cautious is the political climate in Minnesota, which hasn’t voted a Republican into statewide office in decades. And the last Republican to hold a statewide seat, former governor Pawlenty, was “relatively moderate” and “very different” than the current Donald Trump-led GOP, Lindberg said.
“We haven’t seen a strong Republican candidate running statewide other than Trump,” he said.
It would be tough, but not impossible, for Democrats to seize control of the U.S. Senate in next year’s general election.
Currently, the GOP has a 53-47 advantage in the U.S. Senate. While there are more Republicans than Democrats running for re-election next year, most of those Republican senators are in safe seats, as are most of the Democrats.
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But Democrats are facing a real battle to keep their seats in Georgia and Michigan, while Republicans have a “toss up” race in North Carolina.
Yet there are other states that are not considered solidly Republican or Democratic, like Minnesota and including New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Iowa, could decide control of the U.S. Senate in the next Congress.
“Every Senate race is a national race because of the narrow majority,” White said.
White, 34, is sanguine about his loss to Klobuchar, whom he said had the advantages of serving three terms in the U.S. Senate and a “Minnesota nice” persona.
He said he’s doing some things differently in his race for Smith’s seat. One is that he has gotten into the race much earlier than he did when running for Klobuchar’s seat. Another is that he plans to campaign more broadly in the state — and buy television ads as well as digital ads.
White also said he’s taking the long view.
“The permanent political class is deeply entrenched and it’s going to take multiple elections to defeat those people,” he said.
Meanwhile, Schwarze, 41, thinks his moderate stance will win him a U.S. Senate seat because voters are exhausted by extremism in both parties.
“I want to make politics boring again,” Schwarze said.
He believes DFL party activists will favor Flanagan, who is more progressive than Craig, at April’s convention and even next August’s primaries. And he thinks his centrist positions will win the day.
“There’s going to be an off ramp for someone like me,” Schwarze said.
Although he has never run for office before, Schwarze was the spokesman for a political action committee called Conservatives for a Strong America after he retired from the Navy.
White, a Trump loyalist, has attacked Schwarze because signed a document at a fundraiser that said he was a member of the “leadership team” that supported former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley when she ran against Trump in the Republican presidential primary.
Schwarze said signing the document, which was published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, did not make him an activist for Haley’s candidacy.
But he also said “I’m not MAGA.”
“I’m my own person,” Schwarze said. “But I do support most of Trump’s policies.”
As far as his biggest difference with White?
“I’m not divisive,” Schwarze said.
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