Minutes before she was declared Minnesota’s next governor, DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke to reporters for a few minutes, underscoring her goals and expectations.

At that moment, the four-term senator was on the verge of trouncing her GOP opponent, House Speaker Lisa Demuth, and becoming the state’s first female governor. Voters were also handing Klobuchar a DFL trifecta, full partisan control of the House and Senate.

Klobuchar had to be elated, but she chose not to gloat or demean her rivals.

“I’m going to be a governor not just for the people that voted for me, but for all of Minnesota,” she said.

Klobuchar has won a string of elections in Minnesota over three decades, but Tuesday night’s victory put her in rarer air, on a walk with history, but only if she can deliver, which she knows as well as anyone.

As she has done since the outset of her campaign, she is choosing a new tone, managing expectations and aims.

Significantly, she did not declare a DFL mandate and announce her intention to trample the GOP. That’s what the DFL did with a trifecta in 2023. In that session, Gov. Tim Walz and the slim DFL majorities in both chambers pushed through a sweeping slate of progressive policies including paid family leave, free school meals for all students, protections for abortion rights and transgender Minnesotans.

As results were still coming in, Klobuchar was asked what a DFL trifecta would mean for her tenure. “While it is going well for Democrats tonight, no matter who is in charge, Democrats or Republicans, I will work with them,” she said.

Contrast her words with the rhetoric coming from the Hennepin County attorney’s race Tuesday, when state Rep. Cedrick Frazier of New Hope barely eked out a victory despite carrying the DFL endorsement.

Frazier declared that he has a mandate. But the new prosecutor, who has no experience as a prosecutor, is misreading the results. If this were a mandate, that DFL endorsement would have produced a landslide.

In contrast, Klobuchar’s posture in victory showed why she won big: because she’s a deliberative, driven leader who looks at all angles, measures her words and seeks to leave no one behind.

Minnesota voters on Tuesday rebuked President Donald Trump’s politics of hate and division again. Now it’s time for our leaders to deliver on campaign promises and move fast on showing us a better way.

Holocaust historian, “On Tyranny” author and University of Toronto professor Timothy Snyder was in the Twin Cities recently for public events at which he predicted Tuesday’s national blue wave would “begin transformative change.”

But Snyder warned that this is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for Democrats.

Snyder said voters must urge Democrats to seize the moment and “do extravagant things, to show that they’re the party that’s not corrupt.”

He warned that if Democrats fail to act quickly to diverge from and rein in Trump, faith in the nation is at risk. “By spring we’ll be back to, ‘everyone is corrupt,’” he said.

One of Klobuchar’s stated goals is to restore faith in government by curbing “waste, fraud and abuse.” She also wants to restore confidence in the ability of government to improve our lives.

DFLers, including Klobuchar, often quote a signature line of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone: “We all do better when we all do better.”

U.S. Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan, who got her start in politics as a volunteer on Wellstone’s 2002 campaign, was more in-your-face about Trump. That’s appropriate given her new role in the Senate as a check on Trump’s self-enrichment and flouting of the Constitution.

“Working people deserve an economy and a country that finally works for them, not Donald Trump and his billionaire besties,” she said in her speech Tuesday night.

Minnesota voters have resoundingly rejected the Republican refrain that DFLers are the problem. Voters once again tossed the keys of state government to the Democrats who cannot afford to blow this opportunity.

Klobuchar’s off to a strong start, already pivoting into chief executive mode. She explained again that there will be an immediate top-to-bottom audit of state government and big changes.

“When I said that we do not like the status quo, I meant it,” she said Tuesday night.

She repeated her aim to cut regulatory red tape, not raise taxes and build more affordable housing. But she also talked about a “growth agenda” and building a more competitive business environment, which had to be welcome words for centrists and Republicans.

Klobuchar explained that she knows voters are tired of the chaos and corruption in the White House, but she didn’t downplay concerns closer at home. “In Minnesota, and let me say this again, they want to see change as well,” she said.

This most careful politician, the senator next door, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a journalist, promised repeatedly to be a transformative leader: “It’s time for results, not excuses.”

On that point, she cited a singular campaign pledge, noting that Tuesday would have been Harper Moyski’s 12th birthday.

Moyski was killed at Annunciation Catholic Church in August 2025. Harper’s parents endorsed Klobuchar, saying that Demuth had broken her living-room promise to hold a House vote on a gun-safety bill.

The governor-elect didn’t forget about Jackie Flavin and Mike Moyski on election night. She said that a gun-safety bill “will get passed.”

Restoring trust in government will require Klobuchar and the DFL leaders to consistently deliver on their promises. I’m hopeful that they’re all up to the challenge.

I’m also hopeful that Republicans will look at the election results and decide to try cooperation instead of entrenched division and demonization. Maybe if we all try to be better, we can all do better.

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