Kendall Qualls states his case in Minnesota Governor's race: Full interview

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - We’re about a week away from primary elections in Minnesota, where candidates for various openings try to earn their party’s nod for November.

FOX 9 has extended an invitation to all the candidates polling above 5% in both the Minnesota Governor and Senate primary races to appear on our All Day program for an interview. On Tuesday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls joined. Here is his full interview:

You ran for Congress in 2020, a loss to Dean Phillips. You ran for governor in 2022 and withdrew. Why run now a third time?

"When I ran for Governor in 2022, I confirmed I would abide by the endorsing convention and supported Scott Jensen. When we lost everything, that was a deafening time for Republicans and many of them felt we had the wrong guy at the top of the ticket. No. 2 was me, and maybe we had the wrong guy. This time there’s a lot of energy for me running again, and at the end of the day when we have lost the governor’s race for 20 years with the same profile of candidates, there was a strong desire by delegates across the state that we need someone outside of traditional politics, someone from the business community with strong leadership. I won that bill."

You got the GOP endorsement. Mike Lindell and Lisa Demuth are running. How do you feel about those two running against you and not abiding by the endorsement/

"Mike said he wouldn’t abide by it, so he’s not doing anything different from what he said. Nice guy, but we need someone who can win in the general election. Unfortunate that Lisa Demuth took back her word, there were opportunities with Republican brokers after that convention to unite the party. My running mate was willing to make room on the ticket for her to be the No. 2, and she refused. Another reason why a lot of delegates are looking for someone outside of politics, we need to look at serving the state. How do we get our state back and not look at our own personal political ambitions? That’s why they nominated me."

Most recent polls have Mike Lindell at 35%, Lisa Demuth at 26% and you at 11%. 22.5% don’t know. You called that poll not real, why?

"As citizens, as Americans, as Minnesotans, why are we looking at these polls? The last few polls nationally and locally, we should’ve had Hilary Clinton as president, Kamala Harris as president, and two-term Governor Tim Pawlenty should’ve won in 2018 based on the polling data. They were all wrong, and they’ve been wrong for years. This is more than just feelings, I’ve been in the business for over 30 years. Based on data and evidence, we’re much closer than that 11% than most people know. We can only wait and see until Tuesday."

You believe it’s time for an outsider for the Governor’s Office. As somebody that comes in from the outside with no political experience, how do you meld that? 

"We’ve got to remember who we are as Americans. No one is born a politician and go into that field, I’m going to major in politics and become a life-long politician. If evidence of experience was the marker, by God, I don’t want that kind of experience when we have $9 billion of fraud, you look at the household income in the state of Minnesota, when you look at over the past 10 years, our household income is No. 46 out of 50. To buy a home in the state of Minnesota, it’s $40,000 more than Wisconsin. These are local issues, state issues and if experience in politics is what’s needed, I don’t want that level of experience and neither does most Minnesotans."

Ask Mr. Qualls what he plans on doing about the rising health insurance premiums?

"Let’s set the table – If you remember 15 years ago, Democrats promised if we just get the Affordable Care Act, pass this, everyone will have health insurance and it’ll be much cheaper. The quality will be the same, even better. Just trust us, vote for the Affordable Care Act. Americans did that, and 15 years later, the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable. We need to look at market opportunity forces. Lasik surgery was never covered by insurance, when it first came out it was nearly $10,000. Today it’s less than half that, the technology is improved, the quality is improved, there’s much more facilities, those are market forces where healthcare has come down. Market-driven forces, we’ll do a carve-out, a waiver and have more of a market-driven, patient direct access to their physicians where they can opt into it rather than their current plan."

Concerns have been raised about your running mate being at the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. How have you responded to that?

"He attended that rally, when things got a little hairy, he and his friend got out of there. There was no issues there whatsoever. People are attending rallies almost every weekend in our state, these No Kings rallies. That is our First Amendment right, he was never charged and never accused of doing anything violent. These are distractors more than anything else. Brian has been a successful businessman in our state, I stand behind him. He was held as an example of what good small business looks like in Minnesota before he got involved in politics. This is unfortunate, when you take the step and be brave and want to help our state, get involved in politics, immediately he’s targeted."

What’s your final sales pitch?

"Our state is a wonderful state, we’ve seen much better days. I can tell you there’s a lot of people who are almost embarrassed to say where they’re from when they go outside the state. We want to bring pride back, a sense of purpose and unity back to our state that we haven’t seen in decades, and that’s what I’m going to help do."

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