Over the 12 days of the Minnesota State Fair, both candidates for governor made themselves available to voters. What Minnesota’s voters got from Scott Jensen was an increasingly nervous candidate, frustrated about fundraising numbers and his plummeting support in the polls. Yesterday’s new SurveyUSA poll demonstrates that Minnesotans stand with Governor Tim Walz and his leadership over Jensen’s unpredictable campaign antics.
Here is a rundown of Scott Jensen’s State Fair experience:
August 25th: While Minnesotans looked forward to honest conversations with the candidates, who both appeared frequently at the fair, Jensen opened with a tired political stunt and a series of untrue accusations to distract from the wave of articles regarding Jensen defending his Holocaust comparisons.
August 26th: In response to several days of bad press following his countless double downs on equating public health measures during the pandemic to the Holocaust, Jensen tweeted “Don’t let him GASLIGHT you about what the issues REALLY are.”
August 27th: Jensen said he would not apologize for Holocaust remarks until Governor Walz apologized for inflation.
August 28th: Jensen faced scrutiny for his plan to eliminate the state income tax without a plan to address the inevitable budget shortfall. Jensen’s allies’ over the top antics with the “Walz Failed” plane and matching merchandise caused many fairgoers to be uncomfortable, which prompted this Letter to the Editor.
August 29th: Matt Birk grew irritated with Jason Derusha when he asked Birk if he still does not support same sex marriage. After attempting to deflect the question several times, he answered incorrectly that, like abortion, the governor’s opinion on whether same sex couples can stay married under the law: “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
August 30th: Jensen released an education “plan” littered with typos and grammatical errors that proposed closing public schools to open private ones.
August 31st: The Jensen campaign released a State Fair video that doubled as a muscle pump montage for Matt Birk. Jensen also said he would support no new gun safety measures in an interview.
September 1st: Jensen and Birk were chastised by conservative podcast host Joe Soucheray – Jensen for his inappropriate Nazi comparisons and Birk for his disparaging comments about women.
September 2nd: Jensen called the push to reveal his tax returns “voyeuristic on the part of the media” and said, “I’ll release my tax returns once I’m elected governor. Have at it.” This led people to speculate on why they would refuse to release their tax returns and break precedent so blatantly, including a theory that Matt Birk files his taxes in Florida to avoid the state income tax.
September 4th: Jensen invented his own conspiracy theory alleging that WCCO intentionally cut his interview and blamed it on technical difficulties because of collusion between the network and the Walz campaign. He then proceeded to retweet an anti-vax conspiracy theorist peddling the theory and also retweeted someone accusing the media of “censoring” Jensen. WCCO journalist Esme Murphy confirmed that the difficulty was “absolutely not intentional” and that WCCO “did come back and allow Dr. Jensen to answer that question again.”
September 5th: Jensen spent much of his last day of the fair wandering around the DFL booth.
The peddling of conspiracy theories and outright mistruths from Jensen are not representative of the people of Minnesota. From their allies’ “Walz failed” memorabilia, to their plane flying above the fair, the Jensen campaign proved that they are more interested in childish mudslinging and paranoid accusations than listening to Minnesotans and having a good day at the fair.
