Minnesota Republicans say they paid the price for standing by Trump

MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota Republicans headed into the 2026 election with their strongest slate of candidates in years and a persuasive anti-fraud message after scandal rocked the DFL under Gov. Tim Walz.

Yet the GOP was wiped out anyway, crushed by a historic Democratic wave in which voters handed the DFL control of every statewide office and full control of the Minnesota Legislature.

The results are already sparking a reckoning within the GOP over what the party could have done — if anything — and whether Republicans need a top-to-bottom revamp in a state that appears to be marching to the left.

Some Republicans laid the blame solely at the feet of President Donald Trump, saying Minnesota voters weren’t repudiating the platform of local Republicans so much as voicing a broader frustration.

“To me it’s very clear this is a rejection of one man and his behaviors and policies,” said Sen. Jim Abeler, an Anoka Republican who was ousted from his suburban swing district. “It was a rejection of the Iran war, it was a rejection of $6 diesel, it was a rejection of executive orders, it was a rejection of his behavior in office.”

Yet others in the GOP said Minnesota Republican candidates were at fault, too, for failing to break harder from Trump. They argued local Republicans need new ideas and strategies in an era of deep frustration with the president.

“There is something to be said about the fourth step in Alcoholics Anonymous, because that step calls for the person or persons to take a fearless inventory of what they’ve done or not done,” said Scott Jensen, a former GOP state senator who lost the governor’s race in 2022 and the auditor’s race this year. “Doing the fearless inventory, I think, is absolutely required of Republicans, and if they don’t, they’re just going to continue to wallow in being irrelevant for several cycles to come.”

Entering the year, Republicans had reason for optimism. Walz’s popularity was slipping as the massive scope of fraud in state social services programs emerged.

But then Walz dropped out and Trump ramped up his immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which turned into an unpopular debacle that left two Minnesotans dead in the streets of Minneapolis.

Most Republicans in the state still supported Operation Metro Surge, but suburban legislators, including Abeler, sounded the alarm about how the surge of masked federal agents was turning voters away.

In February, as Republican activists sat on plastic chairs in a Blaine elementary school, state Sen. Michael Kreun gently pushed back on the party faithful about ICE’s handling of Metro Surge. It was an issue he had to handle delicately, given base support for tougher immigration enforcement.

“How we do that enforcement does matter,” Kreun said at the time. “It is nuanced, and there are some constitutional rights being violated right now, I can tell you that, and it’s not OK.”

After Trump pulled back on the surge, Republican hopes rebounded. But GOP candidates grew uncomfortable with the war in Iran just as Metro Surge was winding down, acknowledging how it broke with one of Trump’s core campaign promises.

When Trump backed down on a threat to obliterate Iran just before a Republican debate in April, one Republican running for statewide office privately breathed a sigh of relief at not having to defend what they felt was an indefensible wider war.

Still, as the war continued, gas prices climbed along with other costs from Trump’s tariffs. In the end, the GOP was nearly obliterated in the Twin Cities suburbs. Kreun lost. So did Abeler. The DFL flipped seats in greater Minnesota, too, and will now hold significant majorities in the state House and Senate.

Some in the party don’t view the results as a referendum on the local GOP.

State Rep. Patricia Mueller, a Republican from Austin, won by about 5 percentage points in a district she carried by 17 two years earlier.

She chalked up the results to people “frustrated on all levels,” airing their angst and anger. But Mueller said Republicans can’t make sweeping generalizations yet, even as they must talk about their future direction like any political party after an election.

While things were in turmoil across the country, Mueller said, Minnesota was dealing with its own scandals and the impact of fraud.

That may have blunted the impact of the blue wave. A few Republican state lawmakers clung to power in suburban seats that DFLers targeted.

Abeler said Republican values such as freedom, minimalist government and public safety were not on the ballot, and that the electorate is not as blue as these results suggest.

Sen. Carla Nelson, a Republican from Rochester who chose not to run for re-election this year in a seat that flipped to blue, said the election does not mean people are endorsing every proposal Democrats put out.

“I don’t think we should interpret last night’s results ... in Minnesota as a rejection of conservative principles,” she said, but more of a rejection of the president. Nelson said Republicans should focus on localizing races in the future to whatever extent they can in the remaining Trump years since state legislators can’t influence the White House.

But plenty of others see a need for a greater reckoning.

The midterm results vindicated former GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Madel, who ended his campaign for the state’s top office in January over his opposition to Operation Metro Surge. Madel said at the time that “national Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota.”

“I could feel it back in January when people were just saying, ‘God damn it, this is not us,’” Madel said in an interview Wednesday. “You can’t treat humans as subhuman and get away with it in this country. You can’t do it. And I think that’s beautiful.”

Madel said the Republican Party has become “increasingly disconnected” from the voters it needs to win. The party needs to overhaul its agenda to focus on affordability and how to help people “rather than just talking about how much Minnesota sucks,” he said.

Republicans also need to show they “have respect for your fellow human beings” on issues such as immigration enforcement and women’s rights.

“At some point, the Minnesota Republicans need to stop blaming the electorate and they got to start examining themselves,” he said. “What they keep doing over and over again is showing this fealty towards one person.”

After losing his bid for re-election to the Minnesota House, GOP state Rep. Danny Nadeau said the federal government’s actions certainly took a toll on him and other Republicans this year.

Nadeau of Rogers said Republicans in the state need to reflect on what they stand for and whether their positions are in line with the modern electorate.

“Donald Trump is going to be gone in two years,” he said. “What does the Republican Party believe in today, and how do they connect with real voters?”

The party needs to stand “against extremes no matter where they come from — from the left, from the right, from the president,” Nadeau said.

At the same time, he acknowledged Republicans who represent conservative districts are unlikely to be rewarded for doing so.

Instead, he said, they could face backlash from their constituents and still be characterized as extreme by their DFL opponents. “You get attacked regardless today,” Nadeau said.

Jensen said voters in Minnesota and nationwide delivered a “scathing judgment” of Trump as well as the “behavior of many Republican politicians.”

To win elections in the state going forward, he said Republicans are going to have to break from the president.

“They have to ask themselves why they are Republicans,” he said. “Are they Republicans just because the energizing force of Donald Trump came on the scene in 2015 and 2016, or is there a principled perspective that guides them?”

“I think people are going to be more candid. They’re going to say, ‘we were told that this Iranian war would be six weeks, and it’s nothing like that. And we don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we don’t see all major players in government being consulted with. And we’re upset about it,’” Jensen said. “Let’s call it out. The self-aggrandizement of wanting your name on every damn building has got to stop.”