Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota filed paperwork Thursday to run for governor of her home state, signaling her likely entrance to a contest that has shifted rapidly since Gov. Tim Walz made the stunning decision to end his campaign for a third term.

The state’s race for governor has been upended by President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration raids, the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal agent and widespread protests against the administration’s crackdown. The Justice Department has also begun investigations into at least five Democratic officials in the state, including Walz.

Klobuchar’s arrival to the race has been widely expected after Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, bowed out this month. His decision came the day after a meeting with Klobuchar in which Walz tried to anoint the senator as his successor.

Klobuchar Plans Public Announcement

Klobuchar plans to make a public announcement in the coming days, according to a person close to the senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity and described the filing as a preliminary step necessary for any candidate considering a run.

Klobuchar, a self-described “senator next door,” is widely expected to clear the field in the primary race for the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party, as Democrats are known in Minnesota. In 2024, she won a fourth term by 15 percentage points. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who is Minnesota’s attorney general, said this week that he would seek reelection instead of running for governor.

Klobuchar’s entrance would open a new political chapter for a folksy and media-friendly lawmaker who rose from chief prosecutor of Minnesota’s most populous county nearly three decades ago. She ran for president in 2020 and is widely seen as a potential contender in 2028, when her party is expected to have a crowded primary field.

Throughout her Senate career, Klobuchar, 65, has carefully cultivated a brand of “Minnesota-nice” pragmatism, centrism and bipartisanship, positioning herself as a bulwark against efforts to shift her party to the left.

Should Klobuchar become governor — she would begin the race as a heavy favorite — she would end her nearly two-decade career in the Senate and forfeit her post as the chamber’s third-ranking Democrat.

She does not, however, have to relinquish her Senate seat to run for governor. If she were to win and remain in the Senate until she became governor, she would be able to name her own replacement.

Walz Would Not Accept Senate Appointment, Aide Says

An aide to Walz dismissed any talk of a switcheroo, saying the governor would not accept a Senate appointment. Walz’s decision to back away from politics, prompted by a widening scandal over fraud in Minnesota social services programs and relentless Republican attacks, represents a spectacular downfall for a governor who had just last year been seen as a rising influential figure in his party.

The Republican field for governor includes Lisa Demuth, the speaker of the Minnesota House; Scott Jensen, a former state senator who was the party’s nominee for governor in 2022; and Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who spent years promoting false claims about the 2020 presidential election.

Klobuchar’s apparent move is the latest example of a senator deciding that life would be better spent in a state capital than in Washington.

For years, the Senate was seen as a safe political landing spot, offering term-limited governors the ability to run for office over and over again. But the dysfunction in Washington and ineffectiveness of Congress in the face of Trump have changed that perception. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, a Democrat, and Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, both Republicans, are also running for governor in their home states.

Eight other senators, including Tina Smith, D-Minn., have opted against seeking reelection in 2026.

Klobuchar Leading Moderate Democrat in the Senate

The daughter of a celebrity newspaper columnist from suburban Minneapolis, Klobuchar has been a leading moderate for Democrats in the Senate.

She has eschewed diving into polarizing cultural issues to focus on efforts to curb the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs, protect online privacy and craft what she calls “sensible rules” regulating artificial intelligence. She has also focused on combating addiction, speaking openly about her father’s alcoholism, including at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

Early in the second Trump administration, she argued that Democrats should focus more intensely on cost-of-living issues — like egg prices — than staging a loud resistance to the new president’s every move. Her party embraced a similar mantra of talking about affordability in the 2025 elections.

During the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, she highlighted her deep experience in government and often clashed with Pete Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, about which of them would be better as the party’s nominee. In the end, both jointly endorsed Joe Biden, uniting moderates behind his bid and helping him defeat the progressive front-runner, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

The outcome of the race could influence which party ends up controlling both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature. Democrats have a one-seat majority in the state Senate, and the state House is likely to remain tied after a special election is held late this month.

“With her at the top of the ticket, we could have an even better election than we expected,” state Sen. Erin Murphy, the chamber’s top Democrat, said in an interview.

Republicans moved quickly to tie Klobuchar to Walz, who struggled to manage the fraud scandal and has been criticized for failing to prevent it.

“Regardless of who they put on the ticket in 2026, the Democrat, whoever that is, is just another third term of Tim Walz,” said Demuth, the Minnesota House speaker who is running for governor.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Lisa Lerer, Reid J. Epstein and Ernesto Londoño/Eric Lee
c. 2026 The New York Times Company