A former Navy SEAL and Marine veteran running for the Republican Senate nomination in Minnesota says voters across the state are angry and embarrassed by Gov. Tim Walz, and that the fallout from a massive fraud scandal could hand the GOP a seat it hasn't held in two decades.
Adam Schwarze, one of roughly half a dozen candidates seeking the Republican nomination, told Fox News Digital that the political ground in Minnesota is shifting beneath Democrats' feet. He described the coming race as a "20-year opportunity" for Republicans and said the fraud crisis that unfolded on Walz's watch would define the election.
The open Senate seat, with no incumbent in the race, has drawn attention from both parties. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan has emerged as the frontrunner for her party's nomination, picking up endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Flanagan recently appeared alongside Sanders at one of his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour stops in Rochester, Minnesota.
Schwarze did not mince words about the scale of the problem. He told Fox News Digital that the fraud, which he pegged at somewhere between $9 billion and $19 billion, has left ordinary Minnesotans unable to mention their home state without fielding uncomfortable questions.
"Everybody outside of Minneapolis is angered and embarrassed that Minnesota is internationally known [for] fraud. You can't even go outside the country and say your state anymore because people are like, 'What is wrong with your crazy state?'"
He predicted the backlash would show up at the ballot box. "That's going to really have a large effect in the voting in November," he said.
The fraud scandal has been a slow-burning crisis for the Walz administration. Schwarze claimed that despite the staggering sums involved, "there's still been zero people fired from the Walz administration." He accused the governor of trying to take credit for cleanup efforts rather than accepting responsibility, a pattern Schwarze tied to broader criticisms of Walz's character.
Those criticisms have intensified in recent months. Walz faced tough questioning at a congressional oversight hearing over the Medicaid fraud scandal, and his administration's handling of the crisis has drawn scrutiny from multiple directions.
"They're still trying to cover it up, or try to press for a different narrative on the story, take credit, which is what Walz does, right? Stolen Valor Walz, he loves to take credit, but not actually do the work."
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to both Walz and Flanagan for comment. No responses were included in the report.
Schwarze directed sharp criticism at Flanagan as well, calling her "openly running as a socialist" and arguing that her platform would not play well outside the Twin Cities. He cast the Democratic agenda in stark terms.
"What's the Democrat agenda nationally right now? It's anti-Trump, pro-socialism. Now, they're going to run an open socialist candidate for the U.S. Senate. And I don't think it's going to work in Minnesota."
He added bluntly: "Nobody outside Minneapolis is going to vote for socialism."
Flanagan, for her part, has leaned into populist messaging. At the Rochester rally with Sanders, she framed the political moment as a "fight for who this country belongs to, billionaires and corporations or the rest of us." She also took aim at the Trump administration, saying, "They don't give a d*** about you," and calling certain policies "straight up corruption, period, full stop."
The endorsements from Sanders and Warren signal where Flanagan intends to position herself ideologically. Whether that positioning helps or hurts in a general election across a state that includes vast stretches of rural and small-town voters remains an open question, one Schwarze is betting he can exploit.
The broader political pressure on Walz has not been limited to campaign rhetoric. State legislators filed impeachment articles against the governor over the fraud scandal, and questions about accountability within his administration continue to mount.
Schwarze leaned heavily on his military credentials during the Fox News Digital interview. He cited 10 years as an infantry Marine and 11 years as a Navy SEAL officer. And he offered a statistic that doubles as a campaign slogan.
"Navy SEALs are seven for seven in general elections. We don't miss the target."
He also pointed to what he described as grassroots energy on the Republican side, claiming he has seen "as much as twice the normal number of people registering support for Republicans at local caucuses throughout Minnesota." If accurate, that would represent a meaningful shift in a state that has not elected a Republican senator since 2002.
Schwarze framed the race in existential terms, telling Fox News Digital that "the stakes cannot be higher." He described Minnesotans as "a really proud people", farmers, laborers, business owners, who feel the fraud crisis has stained their state's reputation.
A Fox News video segment featuring Schwarze reinforced the same themes, with the candidate repeating his contention that Minnesotans are broadly embarrassed by the governor's record.
"Fraud is everything. That's going to be the thing that takes back our state for people like me who are just patriotic people."
He connected the fraud issue directly to Flanagan's candidacy, arguing that as Walz's lieutenant governor, she was "right there for the $9 to $19 billion in fraud." His logic was simple and military in its framing: "Being a military guy my whole life, you don't fail a mission and then get promoted."
The most striking element of Schwarze's case is not the partisan rhetoric, every Senate race produces that. It is the specific claim that no one in the Walz administration has been fired over a fraud scandal that may run into the tens of billions of dollars. That claim, if it holds, presents a serious accountability problem for any Democrat seeking statewide office in Minnesota.
Walz's administration has faced questions not just about the scale of the fraud but about whether investigators were pressured to bury evidence of the schemes. The governor also made a personnel move that raised eyebrows, dropping his DHS commissioner just before a confirmation hearing as scrutiny grew.
Flanagan's decision to run for the Senate while the fraud scandal remains unresolved gives Republican candidates a ready-made argument: the people who presided over the problem now want a promotion. Whether that argument resonates beyond the GOP primary and into a general electorate conditioned to vote blue will determine whether Schwarze's "20-year opportunity" is real or wishful thinking.
Several open questions remain. The exact scope of the fraud is still disputed, Schwarze cited a range of $9 billion to $19 billion, but acknowledged "we don't know how many billions it truly is." The specific programs involved, the status of any ongoing investigations, and the full chain of administrative responsibility have yet to be laid out in complete public detail.
Minnesota's open Senate seat offers a clean test of whether the fraud scandal has genuinely reshuffled the state's political deck. Republicans haven't won a Senate race there in more than twenty years. Democrats have the registration advantage and the urban base.
But Schwarze is betting that a candidate who can tie Flanagan to the fraud, label her a socialist with Sanders's blessing, and run on military credibility can break through. The GOP primary field is crowded, about half a dozen candidates, and Schwarze will first need to win over his own party before making the case to the broader electorate.
For now, the race is still forming. But the contours are already visible: a military veteran running on accountability against a lieutenant governor running on populist economics, in a state where billions of taxpayer dollars vanished on the current administration's watch.
When the people who lost the money ask for a bigger job, voters have every right to ask what happened to the last one.