Republicans in Senate District 5 have rejected career politician Paul Utke for the second time in a row and selected conservative Rep. Mike Wiener to take the seat in a landslide victory.

SD5 Republicans met on Saturday, March 21st and Wiener was endorsed with 80% of the vote from local GOP delegates. Results calculated to a sweeping 118-30 vote for Wiener. Attendees tell A4L that grassroots dissatisfaction was found throughout the district and that more voters saw their values represented in Wiener’s legislative track record versus Utke’s big government legislative record.

As seen in the 2025 A4L Scorecard, RINO Paul Utke has a pathetic, FAILING lifetime score of 45% while Mike Wiener has an imperfect, but much better lifetime score of 72%.

Utke’s underwhelming speech focused on his legislative experience and Wiener followed up arguing that it is the legislative experience of career politicians that has failed our state and burdened taxpayers with massive fraud. Mike Wiener’s speech for his insurgent candidacy can be seen below:

As mentioned previously, Utke lost the 2022 GOP SD5 endorsement as well. In that instance, conservative Bret Bussman was endorsed in his place. Utke was able to win the primary thanks to his connections with big money donors and corrupt MNGOP Chair David Hann ridiculously cutting off data access from Bussman and other endorsed GOP candidates. Since then, Bussman has remained in the fight by being elected CD7 GOP Chair until he was unjustly removed, to which he refused to concede.

Mike Wiener chose to oppose the Establishment and provide a conservative alternative to another four years of status quo Paul Utke. Grassroots conservatives know new blood is needed and Wiener’s endorsement solidifies this in SD5. Wiener will likely anticipate a primary challenge from Utke and must defeat him among the broader GOP electorate to ensure victory.

Utke is as Establishment as they come. As seen in recent A4L reporting, Utke is even in support of giving more debt for Minnesota taxpayers by funding politicians' pet projects!

The SD5 GOP convention also featured a contest for the SD5 co-director position on the CD7 Executive Committee. In this race, four candidates ran including RINO Fischbach puppet Craig Bishop appointed Jerry Hasse. The race allows two candidates to win and Hasse was unable to secure either of the top two spots with conservative candidate Jason Bach and Vicky Thompson receiving more votes.

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