Republican Candidate For MN Lieutenant Governor Visits UMD

DULUTH, Minn. — The Republican candidate for Minnesota’s lieutenant governor seat made a campaign stop at the UMD campus on Monday.

Former NFL player Matt Birk, who once played for the Vikings, is on the ticket with the Republican candidate for governor Dr. Scott Jensen.

Before playing football professionally, Birk graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics.

He said he wanted to visit the college campus to learn about why so many young people want to move away from Minnesota once they graduate.

Birk said crime, the economy, and education reform are his top priorities in the state.

He received some backlash for comments he made over the summer at an anti-abortion event in Georgia, saying that an abortion cannot heal the wounds of a rape and that today’s society encourages women to have careers and look a certain way.

Birk stood by his speech and talked about how he sees the issue in Minnesota.

“I’m pro-life, but I think in Minnesota abortion is a constitutionally protected right,” Birk said. “I think we can do better than just telling women who are unexpectedly pregnant, ‘well you can have an abortion.’ I think we can do better than that. I think we can build a better system than that. But like Scott and I have always said, the issues we feel like matter to Minnesota voters are the economy, crime, and education, and that’s what we keep talking about, that’s what we keep hearing about from Minnesota voters.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is running for another term with current Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan on the DFL side.

Flanagan appeared at Metro State University in St. Paul on Sunday with Vice President Kamala Harris for an event focused on reproductive rights.

“So much about the progress of our nation when we have tracked it has been measured by the expansion of rights,” Harris said. “And now we are seeing an intentional restriction of rights. What is that saying about the trajectory and the direction of our country?”

The latest polls show that with the election about two weeks away, Governor Walz has a slight lead over Dr. Jensen.