Republican candidate Chris Madel has ended his campaign for governor of Minnesota, citing the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis and the broader impact of a US immigration enforcement operation on the city.
In a statement late on Monday, Madel said he could no longer continue his campaign in light of what he described as the consequences of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Operation Metro Surge, under which two people have been killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.
“I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so,” Madel said in a nearly 11-minute video posted on X.
Madel, a lawyer, previously represented an ICE agent who shot dead Renee Good, a US citizen, in Minnesota earlier this month. While he said he supports deporting the “worst of the worst”, he argued that Operation Metro Surge had gone “far beyond its stated focus on public safety threats” since it began in December.
“United States citizens, particularly those of colour, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That is wrong. ICE has authorised its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that needs only be signed by a Border Patrol agent. That’s unconstitutional, and that’s wrong,” Madel said in the video.
He added that the party’s current direction had made it “nearly impossible” for Republicans like him to win statewide office in Minnesota, even as the state’s Democratic Party faces a sweeping corruption scandal.
Madel’s decision follows the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, who was shot dead by US Border Patrol agents on Saturday while filming an Operation Metro Surge patrol in Minneapolis.
The shooting has triggered national outrage and raised questions about the response from senior Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
In the immediate aftermath, Noem and the Department of Homeland Security accused Pretti of “brandishing” a weapon and engaging in “domestic terrorism”. Pretti was a licensed gun owner and was armed at the time, but video evidence shows he was not holding his gun when he was shot. Footage shows agents disarming him before firing multiple shots.
Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former White House ethics lawyer under President George W Bush, said the response from senior officials broke with established norms.
“The response of the homeland secretary there was very offensive and off the cuff. When you have a shooting of a civilian by a law enforcement officer, there should not be comment until the facts come out,” Painter said.
The official narrative around the killing has also drawn rare criticism from within the Republican Party. Senators Bill Cassidy and Lisa Murkowski, Representative Thomas Massie, and conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association have questioned the justification for lethal force.
“Lawfully carrying a firearm does not justify federal agents killing an American — especially, as video footage appears to show, after the victim had been disarmed,” Murkowski wrote on X.
Senator Thom Tillis also appeared to criticise the administration, writing that “any administration official who rushes to judgement and tries to shut down an investigation” would be doing a disservice to the country.
Cassidy, Murkowski and Tillis are among a small group of Republicans who have publicly called for a full investigation into Pretti’s killing.
David Smith, a US politics expert at the University of Sydney, said the broader silence within the Republican Party was itself significant.
“The fact that most Republicans are really quiet about it is in itself a very telling sign,” Smith said.
He added that framing Pretti’s killing around gun ownership risks alienating core Republican voters.
“A lot of Republicans are really worried about what their pro-gun constituents are going to think,” he said.
Smith argued that concerns extend beyond gun politics to fears of unchecked state power. “They’re looking at this situation in American cities where you have armed federal troops wearing masks with no accountability whatsoever using violence in almost a seemingly random way,” he said.
“This really looks like the government just throwing its weight around in ways that are dangerous to ordinary people.”
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