U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has been re-elected to serve Minnesota in the U.S. Senate for a second term.
She won over Republican challenger Kurt Bills on Tuesday night. The Associated Press called the race shortly after 9 p.m.
“Tonight’s gonna be a long night but a good night,” predicted Klobuchar in her speech to the DFL party at the Crowne Plaza in St. Paul on Tuesday night.
The senator became the first woman in Minnesota to be elected into the U.S. Senate in 2006 and has had high approval ratings ever since.
“This is justice,” said Sen. Al Franken on Tuesday night at the DFL election night party. “No one works harder for Minnesota than Amy Klobuchar.”
In 2006, Klobuchar, DFL-Minneapolis, beat Republican Mark Kennedy by winning more than 58 percent of the state vote. In Senate District 59 and House District 59B — which then included the University of Minnesota — she won by 76 percent.
While in office, Klobuchar’s main accomplishments have included pushing for legislation to ensure consumer-product safety, authoring a bill to assist young women with breast cancer and developing a provision to address prescription drug shortages across the country, which President Barack Obama signed into law in July 2012.
“I think she’s done a great job so far,” said University of Minnesota law student Bethany Mihalik. “I really have a lot of respect for her and what she’s done. I think she’s a really responsive senator, which is kind of hard to find sometimes.”
In the state primary election in August, Klobuchar was elected to represent the DFL party by 90 percent.
Throughout her first term as U.S. senator, Klobuchar remained popular among Minnesotans for her work in the state. The Star Tribune noted that Klobuchar had a 59 percent voter approval rating in an article published in late October.
University students who voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also preferred Klobuchar over Bills.
“I’ve seen that she’s done a lot for Minnesota and that she’s proven that she can stick to her word, and that deserves a vote,” said pharmacy graduate student Zack Nelson.
Biology freshman Matt Halverson, who said he was voting for Romney, said he would vote for Klobuchar because of their shared hometown — Wayzata, Minn.
“I voted for Amy Klobuchar because I see a future in Minnesota with her,” said global studies and political science senior Bethany Birdsall at the DFL party. “I see her continuing what she has been doing as far as policies and her implementations of those policies.”
Birdsall also said that she believed Klobuchar was the “obvious better choice.”
“As Minnesotans, we do not vote our fears; we vote our hopes,” Klobuchar said. “I’m humbled to be your senator.”
