page_title: Amy Klobuchar
section_title: Elections
hierarchical_section_title: Amy Klobuchar / U.S. Senate / Elections
caption_attribution_description: The 16 female senators in the 110th US Congress.
context_page_description: Amy Jean Klobuchar is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Minnesota since 2007. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, Minnesota's affiliate of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the Hennepin County attorney. She announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election on February 10, 2019; on March 2, 2020, she suspended her campaign and endorsed Joe Biden.
  Born in Plymouth, Minnesota, Klobuchar is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School. She was a partner at two Minneapolis law firms before being elected county attorney for Hennepin County in 1998, making her responsible for all criminal prosecution in Minnesota's most populous county. Klobuchar was first elected to the Senate in 2006, becoming Minnesota's first elected female United States senator, and was reelected in 2012 and 2018. In 2009 and 2010, she was described as a "rising star" in the Democratic Party.
context_section_description: 2006
  In early 2005, after U.S. senator Mark Dayton announced that he would not seek reelection, Klobuchar became an early favorite for the DFL nomination for the 2006 election. EMILY's List endorsed her on September 29, 2005, and Klobuchar won the DFL endorsement on June 9, 2006. She gained the support of the majority of DFL state legislators in Minnesota during the primaries. A poll of DFL state delegates showed Klobuchar beating her then closest opponent, Patty Wetterling, 66% to 15%. In January Wetterling dropped out of the race and endorsed Klobuchar. Former Senate candidate and prominent lawyer Mike Ciresi, who was widely seen as a serious potential DFL candidate, indicated in early February that he would not enter the race; that was viewed as an important boost for Klobuchar.
  In the general election Klobuchar faced Republican candidate Mark Kennedy, Independence Party candidate Robert Fitzgerald, Constitution candidate Ben Powers, and Green Party candidate Michael Cavlan. Klobuchar led in the polls throughout the campaign, and won with 58% of the vote to Kennedy's 38% and Fitzgerald's 3%, carrying all but eight of Minnesota's 87 counties. She is the first woman to be elected U.S. senator from Minnesota. (Muriel Humphrey, the state's first female senator and former second lady of the United States, was appointed to fill her husband's unexpired term and not elected.)
  2012
  Klobuchar won a second term in the U.S. Senate, defeating Republican State Representative Kurt Bills by a margin of 35 percentage points (65.23% to 30.53%), carrying all but two counties.
  2018
  Klobuchar ran for a third term and was reelected by a 24-point margin. The Republican nominee was state senator Jim Newberger. The race was not seen as close, with Klobuchar outraising Newberger $9.9 million to $210,066 as of October 17. Klobuchar maintained a double-digit lead in the polls all autumn.
caption: Female senators of the 110th Congress, Klobuchar standing, second from the right, January 2007
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