A businessman and former Marine joined the race for Minnesota governor Thursday, expanding the Republican field of hopefuls seeking the job.<\/p>\n
Patrick Knight launched his 2026 campaign with a video that says Minnesota has lost its way. He joins a crowded field of Republican candidates that is now above a half dozen. The nominee is headed for a fall race against two-term DFL Gov. Tim Walz.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn recent years, our state leadership has lost its way,\u201d Knight says in his video. They\u2019ve taken their eyes off our North Star.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knight, of Plymouth, is the chief executive officer of Good Sense Foods, which makes salad and vegetable toppings and produce snacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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He served in the Marines, both active duty and reserves, for nearly 22 years. He said that included a deployment to the Middle East and work as a judge advocate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The priorities listed on Knight’s campaign website include affordability in housing, child care and health care, making the state more business-friendly and focusing on strengthening the state’s education outcomes.<\/p>\n
Knight is a graduate of the College of Holy Cross, and has a law degree from Georgetown Law and a masters of business administration from Harvard Business School.<\/p>\n
His entrance is the second by a Republican this week. House Speaker Lisa Demuth announced her campaign on Sunday. Also seeking the GOP nod are: state Rep. Kristin Robbins, former state Sen. Scott Jensen, businessman Kendall Qualls, ex-martial arts fighter Brad Kohler, former Navy officer Phillip Parrish and former St. Cloud city council member Jeff Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A businessman and former Marine joined the race for Minnesota governor Thursday, expanding the Republican field of hopefuls seeking the job. Patrick Knight launched his 2026 campaign with a video that says Minnesota has lost its way. He joins a crowded field of Republican candidates that is now above a half dozen. The nominee is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[4075,4073,4071,4074,4072],"class_list":["post-86671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-dining","tag-minnesota-food","tag-minnesota-grocery-stores","tag-minnesota-restaurant"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117605215985799089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}