Walz & Jensen vow for your support during only televised debate

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KVRR) – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Dr. Scott Jensen went head-to-head in the second and only televised debate of the governor’s race.

A topic that had a lot of fireworks is the opioid crisis and fentanyl overdoses.

Walz and Jensen agree Minnesota needs to do what it can to stop drugs from going across the U.S.-Mexico border and coming our way.

The governor said Jensen prescribed fentanyl more than 94 percent of his peers and accepted meals from drug manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.

Jensen doesn’t disagree that physicians and health care systems have contributed to the opioid problem.

“He did an exposé that was in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that was entitled ‘Confessions of a prescription drug pusher’ where Scott acknowledged that their impact on him and marketing impacted his prescribing of those,” Walz said.

“I don’t think Tim Walz has been an advocate of tightening up the Southern border. He’s been loose on that if you will, but I also think that it’s interesting to me that he’s willing to go out and sue drug companies, which I’m ok with, but he’s not willing to go out and take action like that when we’re losing $250 million in the Feeding Our Future fraud,” Jensen said.

An Embold Research Poll sponsored by MinnPost gives Walz a five point lead over Jensen with Walz receiving 47 percent. Nearly 1,600 likely voters were polled from October 10th to the 14th.