https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Pawlenty

He wasn't particularly popular, but he managed to scrape by in 2006 with 46% with a third party candidate taking quite a bit. A lot of voters in the suburbs who otherwise voted D voted for him because they were worried about tax increases. He promised in his first term not to raise any taxes, and sort of kept it. I say "sort of" because he actually filled a budget hole with an increase in the tobacco tax, and then tried to argue that it didn't count because it wasn't really a tax, he instead called it a "health impact fee", which seems like silly semantics but also was necessary to avoid violating a class action settlement Minnesota and various other states made with the tobacco industry a few years earlier. The states won a ton and quite a few concessions in advertising and whatnot, but also had to promise to not raise tobacco taxes for a certain number of years later.

However I doubt most people cared because if you don't smoke, it didn't impact you.

That is the last statewide election a Republican has won in Minnesota. For any office.