
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KFGO/WCCO) – It was a testy final debate between Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and his Republican challenger Dr. Scott Jensen on Friday.
Jensen blamed Walz for pandemic-related learning slides among Minnesota school kids.
“Tim just said a few minutes ago, ‘Minnesota’s got some of the best schools in the country.’ I don’t know where that fluff comes from,” Jensen said. “Quite frankly, Minnesota K-12 education is in trouble.”
Walz said the state has made historic investments in education.
“Being governor means lifting this state up,” Walz said. “It doesn’t mean getting everything right, it doesn’t mean ignoring problems. It means putting solutions out, and working with the people who are going to make it happen.”
The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was another big topic of the debate, with Jensen highly-critical of the Walz administration.
“I think the locking out of kids was horrible,” Jensen said. “And to see Tim Walz’ commissioner of the Department of Health, Jan Malcom, working with her staff to try to find a way to deflect that responsibility on emails where they’re trying to blame parents and kids, I think that was horrible.”
Walz said Jensen personally contributed to the state’s COVID challenges.
“Telling people not to wear the mask,” Walz said. “He can’t even practice in hospitals because he can’t follow their procedures. He mentioned, his license has been investigated five times. It’s currently being investigated now. This reckless, dangerous behavior, this pushing internet conspiracy theories, made our job even harder.”
The latest polls show a neck and neck race between Walz and Jensen, with just over a week to go before Election Day.
There were only two debates between Walz and Jensen, plus a forum at Farmfest in August. There were six debates in 2018 between Walz and GOP challenger Jeff Johnson.
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