Rochester at the end of the month. Another race getting a lot of attention in Minnesota, of course, is the race for governor. On the GOP side, top spots in early straw polls are currently held by Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, businessman Kendall Qualls, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. When the GOP endorsement is settled, I will have him or her on the show for an extended interview.
In the DFL race for governor, the presumptive favorite is definitely Senator Amy Klobuchar. She has a very large lead in the very early limited polling that's been done, and she has a huge lead in fundraising over all the other candidates. And Senator Klobuchar is here right now. Thank you so much. And happy Mother's Day.
Well, happy Mother's Day to you and all those mothers out there. I hope that after they watch your show, they can go do something fun for a few hours. They deserve it.
Absolutely. All right. I want to ask you about fraud. You had a news conference just a couple of weeks ago talking about your fraud program. Minnesotans are really upset about this ongoing fraud situation. Tell us about your plan. And we've got like a couple of bullet points that we're going to put on the screen here.
Okay. Well, they have every right to be angry about what's happened here. Taxpayers' money should not go to people who rip them off, and the people that rip them off should go to jail. A lot of that's going on right now, but we have to get and root out every piece of fraud against the taxpayers. And my former job, being the prosecutor running the biggest prosecutor's office in Minnesota for eight years, is going to make me well equipped to work on this. But my plan is this: number one, audit the state government from top to bottom.
We have a graph. There you go. You're carrying your own graphic there.
Number two, that we've got to update our technology, that we have to stop it before it starts with surprise audits and make sure that there are inspections all the time. Make sure that these people that apply for grants are vetted. And then we've got to focus on the programs where it's gotten really bad, and we know what they are. And it's not just one agency. And then longer criminal penalties. And finally, for people who commit this fraud, once they get out of jail, they should never be able to apply for another state grant or contract again. The door should be closed.
What is it, in your opinion? What is going on? Is it at the application process that this is breaking down?
It appears to have broken down all the way along the way, and we've got to look to what happened to be able to fix it. But I am interested in making sure it doesn't happen again, because you've got to gain the trust of the people of Minnesota again for our state government to be able to get anything done.
Absolutely. All right. I want to talk about your prior wins statewide. You have won your Senate seat every six years by enormous margins — 20-plus, 35-plus in 2012, 24 points ahead in 2018, 16 points in 2024. Also, when it comes to money, you've raised an extraordinary amount — $3.4 million. You were not allowed to carry over your U.S. Senate campaign. That compares to Lisa Demuth, who has 544,000; Walz, 100,000; and Lindell, 40,000. A lot of people say, 'Oh, this is in the bag. Amy Klobuchar has got this.' Do you feel you can coast here?
Of course not. I don't like the status quo. I want to see change. And while all this chaos in Washington — you were just talking about the gas prices — maybe it can't be an excuse for change. So I've already visited, I think, 43 counties across the state just this year. I go everywhere. I don't just go where it's comfortable. I go where it's uncomfortable. I've been focused on child care and housing and all the things we need to make Minnesota a better place for people to live.
Secondly, on the money front, 90% of my donors gave less than 100 bucks. I have tended, and they came from every single county in our state. I want to make sure that this is a grassroots campaign. I'm going to be out at festivals, out at parades, talking to people. I don't think you learn things by just putting your head in the sand. You learn things by getting out there. And so that's going to be a big part of how I want to run this campaign. But the biggest thing is how I want to govern. I want to get results. I don't want to just have political theater. I don't want to have these mean tweets all the time. Minnesotans want to transform our government, and that's what I intend to do, so it works for them. One-stop shop when you want to call in — you shouldn't have to take a half day out of work when you have to get a license or apply for something.
We want to expand business in our state, big and small. We want to get more high-paying jobs, match the education system to those jobs. I think this is exciting, and we don't want to rest on our laurels in our state. We want to move forward.
