On August 20th 2025, RINO Kristin Robbins announced she would be running for Governor, highlighting her role as Chair of the House Fraud Committee. While lacking grassroots support, the media and political class saw her as a strong contender. Since this point, Robbins has been on a downward spiral and has likely squashed her chances at becoming the Republican nominee for Governor.

On October 16th, Robbins announced her campaign claiming to have the endorsements of sixteen current and former MN legislators and two former federal officials. See below:

Unfortunately for Robbins, only Dave Baker and Barb Haley can be traced as real supporters! Baker and Haley both donated to Robbins' campaign and Haley sits on the campaign’s finance committee. Natalie Zeleznikar did share an article on social media when Robbins announced but never released a public endorsement. As for the others - A4L could not locate a single social media post or other public statement confirming that they actually support her campaign! In fact, it is not clear which of the names mentioned above still support Robbins! The names cannot even be listed as endorsements on Wikipedia’s 2026 MN Governor race page because they are not confirmed publicly by any news source.

As an elected official endorsing someone for the highest office in the state of Minnesota, it is odd that they wouldn't want people to know about their endorsement. Why are GOP legislators not making it clear where they stand on the Governor’s race?

Things went sideways for Robbins when Lisa Demuth entered the race on November 2nd. Robbins initially tried to slam Demuth for the backroom budget deal Demuth cut with Walz but the argument fell flat because Robbins voted for 8 of the 14 bills made in this deal! Robbins was silent on the corruption when it mattered most (during the special session but A4L sounded the alarm and called out the corruption as it was all going down. On the other hand, Lisa Demuth kept it cordial and complimentary in her response to Robbins.

It is no surprise that spineless RINO legislators got quiet once they realized they had a cat-fight on their hands! They’ve now got their elected legislative leader (Lisa Demuth) running shortly after they endorsed a colleague (Kristin Robbins) for the same position. They've also got another colleague (Peggy Bennett) who is also running despite her campaign's irrelevancy.

Demuth's campaign took a lot of the oxygen out of the room for Robbins. Kristin Robbins went from being the only female legislator running to one of three female legislators running and is out-ranked by one of them. Robbins was named chair of the performative and useless House Fraud Committee by Lisa Demuth so they are now forced to share talking points. Demuth further cut Robbins out of the picture by quickly naming Ryan Wilson as her running mate, eliminating any possibility of a coalition ticket.

As seen in previous A4L reporting, Robbins had a very weak performance in the caucus straw poll despite strong fundraising numbers. Robbins lost to “Undecided” and is clearly not what the GOP base is looking for. Instead of accepting this reality, Robbins excused her performance by blaming the results on her refusal to abide by the party endorsement. While that may have played a factor, most caucus attendees likely had no idea which candidates planned to abide and which ones didn’t. 

Robbins was the MN Nikki Haley campaign chair and desperately tried to prevent President Trump from retaking the White House. Haley has sent two texts/emails to her supporters getting campaign money for Robbins on both Sep. 18th and one on Nov. 12th. If she somehow became the GOP nominee for Governor, the conservative base and conservatives at large would not show up to vote. For the GOP to win, it will take nearly every single one of the over 1.5M MN Trump voters to turn out again in 2026 and a typical RINO cannot do that.

A rumor floating around is that Kristin Robbins will eventually become Kendall Qualls’ running mate. Some evidence this by pointing to Robbins’ campaign chair being David Fraunshush, who gave $75K to Qualls for his 2022 Governor campaign. Since she is too deep in the hole to win the GOP endorsement or primary at this point, it would not be surprising to see her team up with another candidate as the GOP race becomes a three-way contest between Lisa Demuth, Mike Lindell, and Kendall Qualls.

The downward spiral of Kristin Robbins’ campaign has made it clear that she is out of touch with MN conservatives and appears to continually lose support. Action 4 Liberty will continue bringing Patriots bold, anti-establishment, liberty-based reporting that pulls no punches. While RINOs cave on the principles they were elected to represent, A4L will never waiver in our mission to protect liberty for the next generation.