On Thursday, Democratic Sen. Al Franken announced he would resigning "in the coming weeks." Franken's decision came a day after two more women accused him of sexual harassment, and most of the Democratic caucus called for him to leave. Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton will appoint a new senator who will serve at least until a special election is held in November of 2018, and the seat will be up again for a full six-year term in 2020. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is also up for a regularly-scheduled election next fall as well. From now on, any updates about Klobuchar's race will be designated with the tag MN-Sen-A (though we don't expect her to have much trouble winning a third term), while stories about this special election will be filed under MN-Sen-B.
It's not clear when exactly Franken will officially leave, but it sounds like we won't need to wait long to find out who will be succeeding him. Just after Franken made his announcement, Dayton said that he had "not yet decided on my appointment to fill this upcoming vacancy,” but added, “I expect to make and announce my decision in the next couple of days." Politico reported on Wednesday night that Dayton was "expected" to appoint Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, who would likely not run in the special election.
Many potential Democratic candidates will be waiting to see whom Dayton picks and whether that person runs in 2018 before making a decision, but the GOP doesn't need to be so cautious. Minnesota Democrats have done well in statewide races for a long time, but the state can be quite volatile. Notably, Barack Obama’s comfortable 53-45 win in 2012 shrunk to just a 46-45 edge for Hillary Clinton last year, the GOP's best showing in a presidential race since Ronald Reagan lost to native son Walter Mondale by fewer than 4,000 votes in his 1984 landslide. 2018 is shaping up to be a good year for Democrats, but national Republicans will be happy to give Team Blue another seat to defend.
So who might go for it? Former Sen. Norm Coleman, who narrowly lost to Franken in a famous 2008 recount, said he wouldn't run on Thursday, and attention quickly turned to ex-Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty, who waged a failed presidential bid in 2012 after leaving the governor’s office, has reportedly shown lots of interest behind the scenes in running for his old job next year to replace the retiring Dayton, but Republican strategists openly hope that he’ll run the Senate instead. Notably, Pawlenty wanted to run for this seat all the way back in 2002. However, the Bush White House preferred Coleman as their nominee, and Pawlenty decided to switch to the governor's race after Vice President Dick Cheney called him and urged him to stay out of the Senate contest.
Pawlenty narrowly won re-election during the 2006 Democratic wave, so he has experience with tough contests. However, as we've noted before, Pawlenty currently heads a D.C.-based group that lobbies on behalf of Wall Street. While his political and financial connections would give him access to plenty of money, Democrats wouldn't need to work hard to portray Pawlenty as a tool of greedy Washington interests who has abandoned his Midwestern home.
While we have yet to hear from T-Paw, a few other Republicans have already expressed interest. Wealthy businessman Stewart Mills said Wednesday that he'd "more than kick the tires" if this seat opened up. Mills ran twice against Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan in the rural 8th District and narrowly lost despite very favorable political conditions in 2014 and 2016. Mills considered a third House bid until November, when he authored a long Facebook note not only announcing he wouldn't run but also railing on the NRCC for supposedly abandoning him last year in his hour of need. So yeah, we bet the NRSC is really excited to work with this dude. State Sen. Karin Housley also said Thursday she was "seriously considering,” and we're likely to see plenty of other names pop up here soon as well.