MINNEAPOLIS — This summer, Lisa Demuth was twice asked to name one of President Donald Trump’s policies she disagreed with. She didn’t.

Then this week, the Republican nominee for governor announced she wants the war in Iran to end.

“It is hurting Minnesotans,” Demuth said.

With polls showing the president’s approval rating continuing to slide, a growing number of Republicans in competitive races across the country are taking steps to distance themselves from Trump.

In states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida, GOP candidates have criticized the war in Iran, high gas prices, tariffs and federal immigration enforcement.

In Minnesota, this dynamic is mostly playing out in statewide races, like those for governor, U.S. Senate and attorney general.

“When I’m attorney general, I will not take orders from President Trump,” Republican candidate Ron Schutz said Tuesday, adding there “may very well be times when it’s appropriate to sue the federal government.”

But Schutz also took issue with the premise of keeping the president at arm’s length.

“The Democrats have one page in their playbook, and it’s try to paint every person on the Republican Party ticket as beholden to Donald Trump.”

Michele Tafoya, the GOP nominee for Senate, openly sought Trump’s endorsement this summer but after winning the primary in August told MPR News: “I’m an independent thinker, and we’re going to welcome everyone into this camp.” She said she wouldn’t “answer to party leadership.”

Tafoya’s support for the war in Iran — which this spring included a call to “take one less trip to Starbucks” in response to rising gas prices — has also softened.

“The president and his administration needs to lay out very clearly what the objective is,” she told WCCO earlier this month. “Let’s accomplish that objective and let’s get our soldiers home.”

Still, not every Republican is trying to put daylight between their campaign and the president. In Minnesota’s competitive U.S. House races, Republicans have continued to back the president on Iran.

In July, Rep. Brad Finstad applauded Trump’s approach to the war and said during an interview on KARE 11 that he believed the conflict would be “settled very quickly.”

“What we’ve seen here, I think, is the ultimate disrupter-in-chief in President Trump (who) said: ‘I’m going to rip the Band-Aid off, and we’re going to take care of this.”

Finstad and Minnesota’s three other Republican House members voted against a war powers resolution that would rein in Trump’s conflict each time it has come up for a vote. Finstad’s most recent vote opposing the resolution was in mid-September.

In Minnesota’s Second District, where Republican state Sen. Eric Pratt is running to replace Rep. Angie Craig, he told The Minnesota Star Tribune in early September that he would not support the war powers resolution so long as the U.S. is in the conflict.

“I think we’ve got to finish the job,” Pratt said. “We’ve been in this conflict now for almost 50 years, it’s time to finish it.”

During a debate last week, Pratt struck a more resolved tone on the war but would not elaborate exactly where he stood on the conflict.

“I support finding a way to end this conflict quickly, but in no way, shape or form should we ever submit to a position where Iran is allowed to get a nuclear weapon,” Pratt said.

Democrats have hoped to make Trump an issue even in legislative races, including the high-profile state Senate election in northeastern Minnesota. DFL state Sen. Grant Hauschild pressed his Republican opponent Andrea Zupancich to name things she disagrees with the GOP on during a September debate in Ely.

Hauschild said Zupancich should call out things such as Medicaid cuts passed by Congress and approved by Trump, or higher costs from Trump’s tariffs “devastating our region” or “rising costs on our communities.”

“This is not that hard,” he said.

Zupancich responded: “I’m not at the Capitol, or I’m not at Washington either to tell them that I disagree with how they’re doing things.”

“However I did go down to the (state) Capitol with other mayors to bring up the issue with fraud,” she said.

(Sydney Kashiwagi and Walker Orenstein of The Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.)

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