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Capitol View®
Tom Scheck

Entenza to make it official Thursday morning

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Former DFL House Minority Leader Matt Entenza will formally announce his campaign for governor tomorrow morning. He'll make the announcement in his hometown of Worthington.

It was widely expected that Entenza would run for governor. He set up a website, formed an exploratory committee and has been traveling the state as a part of his think tank Minnesota 2020. Entenza left his position as board chair earlier this week.

Entenza was the DFL endorsed candidate for Attorney General in 2006 but dropped out of the race after it surfaced that he paid an investigator to look into fellow DFLer Mike Hatch.

Entenza will be running in a crowded pack of DFLers who hope to be governor. State Rep. Paul Thissen of Minneapolis, state Sen. John Marty of Roseville, state Sen. Tom Bakk of Cook, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, former state Sen. Steve Kelley of Hopkins and former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton are all in the race. Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman are also considered possible candidates.

GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty hasn't said whether he'll run for a third term. But his political director announced today that Pawlenty has a spiffy new website and a pretty weak twitter link (

1 follower

Following 1 person?).

Update: Entenza's spokeswoman Bridget Cusick sent along this statement in reaction to my post on Entenza's investigation/researcher:

"Matt worked with a research firm that has provided research services to many Democratic candidates and political organizations (http://gragertresearch.com/political.html). While they exceeded their mandate in requesting public documents about Mr. Hatch, there was was never any "private investigator."