Austin Erickson’s conversation with Kendall Qualls
MINNESOTA – Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls believes he’s the right person to lead The North Star State.
He went from living in poverty to becoming an officer in the Army, serving stateside and in the demilitarized zone in South Korea to becoming a vice president of a Fortune 100 company.
“Along the way, I’ve had some valuable leadership training and business experience and that’s what our state needs,” Qualls explained.
Qualls believes with this experience he can do more than just relate to all Minnesotans.
“What I’ve found in the Democratic Party, not just in our state but nationally, they’re making it difficult for people to get by and people don’t just want to get by. We want to thrive economically,” Qualls said.
Qualls believes Minnesotans want to live in safe communities and get their children a good education so they can prosper which he says Democrats aren’t helping anything with.
“Academic excellence isn’t even on their radar screen. We used to be rated number seven by the Anne E. Casey Foundation for all public schools in the country. We’re rated number 19 three years later. Sixty-eight percent of fourth graders in Minnesotans can’t read at grade level,” Qualls said.
Minnesota’s Department of Education reports more than 59,700 high school seniors graduated in the state in 2024, or 84.2 percent of that year’s graduating class, which is the highest the state has recorded.
“Minnesota’s highest graduation rates on record are a testament to the historic investments we made to provide free school meals, support teacher training, expand mental health resources, and promote technical training opportunities for Minnesota high schoolers,” Governor Tim Walz said in a statement.
“The FBI data stats says since 2018, when Governor Walz took over, to 2024, violent crime in Minneapolis went up 45 percent. Minneapolis was rated number one as the safest city in the country by Forbes Magazine in October 2009. This doesn’t just impact the Twin Cities. It’s gone all the way to Duluth and down to Worthington. We hear the same thing. Rural Minnesotans used to want to spend time in the Twin Cities. No one wants to go there. We can’t be a great state without a great Minneapolis,” Qualls explained.
The DFL posted on social media “Minnesotans don’t want Kendall Qualls or his far-right agenda anywhere near Minnesota government—which is why they’ve already rejected him twice before” referring to his 2022 run for governor and 2020 race for Minnesota’s Third Congressional District. The DFL goes onto say Qualls is “obsessed with defunding public schools, wants to appeal the Affordable Care Act and is a 100 percent anti-abortion activist.”
“They call me everything short of a zealot. You’re right, I am a zealot. I’m a zealot for everything great for our country. They’re fearful. They have nothing to run on, so they scare the bejesus out of people about their opponent. I’m the last candidate they want to see on the general ballot, because they know they will lose,” Qualls said.
Walz has not said if he’ll run for a third term.
