The Republican Party of Minnesota elected a new leader this weekend, ousting current chairman David Hann and replacing him with Wayzata City Councilman and longtime party activist Alex Plechash.
This move was celebrated by anti-establishment grassroots party activists who opposed Hann, although they did not embrace Plechash, who was not their number one choice for the role.
When he takes over the party in January 2025, Plechash will be challenged by the need to satisfy a strong right-wing base while convincing the donor class that he can deliver results, current and former party members say.
“The term grassroots has become a pejorative. It shouldn’t be that way because it really applies to the culture and ethos of the Republican Party,” Plechasch said in an interview. ‘It’s quite a task, I understand that. But if we can somehow spread the message to all sides – if you want to call it sides – that we are all working together, then believe in my heart that we will come together.”
The main organizing group that has been at odds with the founding of the Minnesota GOP for years, Action 4 Liberty, took credit for Hann’s ouster on Saturday.
Some observers say this could deter major donors who want to invest in candidates who can win statewide elections. The last time a Republican candidate won a statewide office in Minnesota was in 2006.
“There is a large bloc of Republicans, especially in Minnesota, who do not identify with the ‘Liberty-MAGA’ wing of the party,” said Michael Brodkorb, former vice chairman of the Republican Party. “And I think it is a risk for the new chairman to embrace that association.”
Priorities
Plechash said his top priorities will be building major donor fundraising as the party sets its sights on the 2026 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections.
The Republican Party of Minnesota was in financial trouble for more than a decade until Hann pulled the party out of debt in recent years — something the outgoing chairman cited in a statement after he lost reelection.
“When I was elected in a special election in October 2021, the party was deeply in debt, our members were demoralized, and our donors and allies were frustrated by the party’s dysfunction,” Hann said. “I cannot emphasize enough what it took to get us to that place and what an honor it was to lead the recovery of our party’s finances.
Plechash says the Republican Party’s statewide losing streak can be reversed by focusing on parts of the state that the GOP has not focused on, such as deep blue cities.
The strategy he described is similar to that advocated by 2024 Republican Senate candidate Royce White, an anti-establishment figure whose endorsement and nomination were seen as a surprise by many political observers. Plechash was one of White’s endorsers at the May endorsement convention.
Plechash previously served as the party’s representative on the Republican National Committee, a position he held since 2021 before losing the seat to AK Kamara this year. He is a Navy veteran who flew fighter jets from the 1970s to the early 1990s.
During his private sector career, he has worked for Exxon, in investment banking and as a vice president at an executive search firm. He was first elected to the Wayzata City Council in 2016 and was elected to a third term in November. He has been involved with the GOP since 2004.
An activist group plays a role in Hann’s ouster
Activists from the anti-party establishment activist group Action 4 Liberty claimed victory in Plechash’s election as party chairman, but mainly because he will replace Hann, whom they call a “RINO” – a Republican in name only consists.
They stopped short of fully embracing the newly elected chairman, noting that he had “stabbed in the back” a group of Otter Tail County Republican delegates who the party had barred from the 2022 convention because they were an unendorsed candidate for the Senate supported.
Hann, a former senator, had served as party chair since a special election in October 2021 following the resignation of former chair Jennifer Carnahan amid a toxic workplace scandal and sex trafficking allegations against a donor she had close ties to.
MN GOP Vice Chair Donna Bergstrom won reelection, saying delegates may have turned against Hann after he endorsed her opponent Kip Christianson in that contest.
“When he decided not to support me, it really soured a lot of our delegates,” she said.
DFL response
This weekend, Democratic Farm Party Chairman Ken Martin used Hann’s ouster as an opportunity to portray Minnesota’s Republican Party as dysfunctional and extreme.
“Control of Minnesota’s entire state government is up for a vote in 2026,” he said in a statement. “Today’s chaos shows that if Minnesota Republicans regain power, they will be dependent on the same far-right fringe that now dominates the national Republican Party.”
State Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, the party’s director of outreach and engagement, said this wasn’t surprising.
“We can bet with confidence that the DFL had their press release ready and simply inserted the name of whoever prevailed as MNGOP chairman,” he said.
