The daughter of Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth has again publicly distanced herself from her mother’s political positions, this time drawing a comparison to former President Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, Shelisa Demuth shared a link to a Minnesota Public Radio story that contrasted her mother’s approach to the state’s affordable housing shortage with that of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Without naming either candidate, Shelisa Demuth commented on Threads that one candidate “sounds like Trump” while the other “sounds like she’s considered the topic more than once before and perhaps has studied the issue with experts who can advise on it.”
Lisa Demuth, the current Minnesota House Speaker, secured the Republican nomination for governor in August. She defeated Mike Lindell, founder of MyPillow and a prominent Trump supporter, as well as healthcare executive Kendall Qualls.
Shelisa Demuth, who survived a 2003 shooting at Minnesota’s Rocori High School, has on multiple occasions voiced opposition to her mother’s conservative political stances. In January, she criticized Lisa Demuth's response to protesters who disrupted a church service to protest Trump's immigration policies. "Injustice to anyone is injustice to everyone. You should be outraged," Shelisa Demuth wrote at the time.
Last May, she denounced her mother’s decision not to bring a gun control bill to a vote in the House. The bill, which would regulate the ownership and sale of semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, had previously passed the Minnesota Senate. Shelisa Demuth wrote on Threads that it was notable that her mother, as the mother of school shooting survivors, was deferring the gun control bill. She later clarified that she and her sister were survivors, not victims.
In a May op-ed for The Minnesota Star Tribune, titled “What my mother got wrong on gun reform,” Shelisa Demuth elaborated on her views. She stated that her mother, who prides herself on fairness professionally, was running for an office that would require her to negotiate tough issues, not avoid them. She concluded that the session her mother was closing as speaker would be her legacy, posing a question about the future voters would build.