Minnesota is a state in crisis. What future are we forging for our children? Now more than ever, we need proven leaders who can reverse the damage before it is too late to recover.
The Aug. 11 primary election will determine the candidates on the Nov. 3 midterm ballot. Now is the time for Minnesotans to research the candidates and ask themselves: who can lead Minnesota’s comeback?
Allow me to invite you into my perspective as a wife, mother of six, teacher, and home educator who has been engaged in our state legislative process since 2023. My grassroots involvement at the State Capitol gave me a front-row seat to gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth’s leadership in the Minnesota House, first as the minority leader under a Democrat trifecta, and then as the speaker of the House under a 67-67 tie.
I encourage you to take a few minutes to walk a mile in her shoes.
Let me bring you to the day I first met Lisa Demuth in mid-April 2024. Even though I arrived unannounced at her office, she welcomed me in. The purpose for my visit was to deliver a “Religious Liberty for All” poster petition. In 2023, Democrats had modified the Minnesota Human Rights Act to add “sexual expression and gender identity,” yet they purposefully omitted the religious exemption clause. House Republicans persisted until they found a path forward to reinstate an updated religious exemption clause. This is just one example of how Lisa Demuth led the House Republicans in holding the line to protect our most vital freedoms.
Now let’s fast forward to bring you onto the House floor on Sunday, May 19, 2024, the last night of the 2023-24 legislative biennium under a Democrat trifecta. It was about half an hour before the midnight deadline.
Under the trifecta, Democrats wielded complete control over which bills were passed. Republicans could only offer common sense amendments to add balance or safety guardrails. Despite their efforts, the Democrats unilaterally blocked all their amendments and proceeded to pass bills such as abortion up to birth, removal of life-saving protection for babies after birth, and a right to “gender-affirming care,” even for minors in defiance of parental rights or other states’ laws.
Back on the House floor, the Democrats weren’t through yet. An over one-foot high, 1,400-page stack of paper was hefted onto the secretary’s desk and moved for passage without members having access to either a physical or digital copy.
Lisa Demuth and the House Republicans immediately leapt to their feet, grabbed their microphones to make motions and called for points of order in what became an unprecedented breach of protocol. If we had been nodding off to sleep, the eruption of the cacophony from the House floor would surely wake us up.
In shock, we witnessed the total breakdown of the legislative process as Democrats ignored their Republican colleagues and forced passage of the 1,400-page bill which inflicted nearly irreversible damage to our state budget.
So how did Lisa Demuth come to find herself in this difficult position in the House in 2024, and how did she move forward from that moment to run for governor in 2026?
Before Lisa Demuth was ever in office, she was a wife and a mother raising her four children in the Cold Spring community. She was a business owner and member of the Jaycees along with her husband. Their four children were all enrolled in the ROCORI schools when a school shooting tragedy took the lives of two students. Lisa’s desire to serve her community following that tragedy led her to serve three terms on the school board.
Following her third term as a school board member, state Rep. Jeff Howe asked her to consider running for the Minnesota House in 2018. Lisa agreed and was successfully elected that year, plus reelected in 2020, 2022, and 2024. One of the first bills Lisa authored targeted daycare fraud, and she also championed the Heartbeat Bill to protect the unborn. Because of her unyielding defense of life from conception, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) has awarded her their endorsement in the gubernatorial race.
In 2023, Lisa’s colleagues elected her as their Republican minority leader in the House, and in 2025, they elected her speaker of the House. Time and again, both Lisa’s constituents and colleagues have elected Lisa to lead because she does it so well, even under the most trying of circumstances.
After that night of the devastating conclusion of the ’24 session, Lisa did not retaliate. Instead, she drew deeply on her faith and got busy leading House Republicans in holding all their seats plus flipping three more in the 2024 election to achieve a historic 67-67 tie.
So the next January, when House Republicans returned to the House floor, Lisa’s colleagues handed her control of the gavel by electing her speaker of the House. In the 2025-26 session, Lisa Demuth was the tip of the spear leading the House Republicans in blocking the Democrat agenda.
Together they held the line on blocking all new taxes, cutting property taxes, protecting religious and medical freedom, upholding Second Amendment rights, and protecting homeschool freedom and funding for all schools. Lisa also led Republicans in championing a $5 billion budget cut, the largest in state history.
When Lisa sat across the table from Walz and Democrat legislative leaders to negotiate the 2025 budget bill, she held the line on no new taxes and put an end to taxpayer-funded healthcare for adult illegal immigrants. Lisa Demuth used her front row seat to the fraud to expose it, block it, and send criminals to jail. Republicans also established the Fraud Committee, the independent Office of Inspector General, and a a new 100% tax on fraud.
If this is what Lisa Demuth can accomplish using only a tie in the House as leverage, imagine what she could accomplish as our governor.
As a grassroots concerned mother and educator who was involved in the legislative process, I had a front-row seat in witnessing Lisa as a resilient, joyful warrior who leads with dignity and strength no matter the circumstances. Even under tremendous adversity, Lisa Demuth does not cave. She delivers on conservative principles time and time again for the people of Minnesota.
Karin Miller is the author of “Faith in Action,” a Substack publication. She is a wife, mother, teacher, and community leader who seeks to bring the salt and light of God’s truth into the social, political sphere.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
