The 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election took place on November 3, 1998. Reform Party candidate Jesse Ventura defeated Republican Party challenger Norm Coleman and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party challenger Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. Ventura governed with a DFL-controlled state Senate and a Republican-controlled state House.

Ventura's victory as a third party candidate was considered a historic major upset. He ran on the Reform Party ticket, which was founded by Ross Perot, who received 23% of the vote in 1992 in Minnesota.

Ventura spent around $300,000 and combined it with an aggressive grassroots campaign that featured a statewide bus tour, pioneered use of the Internet for political purposes, and aired quirky TV ads designed by Bill Hillsman, who forged the phrase “Don’t vote for politics as usual.” Unable to afford many television ads, Ventura mainly focused on televised debates and public appearances, preaching his brand of libertarian politics. His speech at a parade in rural Minnesota during the summer attracted what organizers of the annual event described as one of its largest audiences. He ran on cutting taxes, reducing state government, and reducing public school classroom sizes to a 17 to 1 ratio. He also supported a public debate on the viability of legalized prostitution.

Minnesota (ⁱ/mɪnɨˈsoʊtə/) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water". Those waters, together with forests, parks, and wilderness areas, offer residents and tourists a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities.

Minnesota is the 12th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the U.S. states. Nearly 60% of its residents live in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area (known as the "Twin Cities"), the center of transportation, business, industry and education and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.

James George Janos (born July 15, 1951), better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American statesman, actor, author, and former professional wrestler who served as the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003.

Ventura served as a Navy UDT during the Vietnam War. He later embarked on an 11-year professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking up the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura. He had a long tenure in the World Wrestling Federation as a performer and color commentator, and was inducted into the company's Hall of Fame in 2004. After leaving wrestling, Ventura began a successful film career, appearing in films such as 1987's Predator.

Ventura first entered politics as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota from 1991 to 1995. He ran as the Reform Party candidate in the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1998, running a campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that implored citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". The campaign was successful, and Ventura served from January 4, 1999, to January 6, 2003, without running for a second term.

Larry King (born November 19, 1933) is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards. He began as a local Florida journalist and radio interviewer in the 1950s and 1960s and became prominent as an all-night national radio broadcaster starting in 1978. From 1985-2010, he hosted the nightly interview TV program Larry King Live on CNN.

King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York City, to an Austrian immigrant Edward Zeiger, a restaurant owner and defense plant worker, and his wife Jennie Gitlitz, a garment worker, who emigrated from Belarus. King grew up in a religiously observant Jewish home, but in adulthood became an agnostic.

King's father died at 44 of heart disease, and his mother had to go on welfare to support her two sons. His father's death greatly affected King, and he lost interest in school. After graduating from high school, he worked to help support his mother. From an early age, however, he had wanted to go into radio. King is a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno /ˈlɛnoʊ/ (born April 28, 1950) is an American stand-up comedian and television host.

From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time, UTC-5), also on NBC. After The Jay Leno Show was canceled in January 2010 amid a host controversy, Leno returned to host The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 1, 2010.

James "Jay" Leno was born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1950. His mother, Catherine (née Muir; 1911–1993), a homemaker, was born in Greenock, Scotland, and came to the United States at age 11. Leno's father, Angelo (1910–1994), who worked as an insurance salesman, was born in New York to immigrants from Flumeri, Italy. Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, and although his high school guidance counselor recommended that he drop out of school, he later obtained a Bachelor's degree in speech therapy from Emerson College, where he started a comedy club in 1973. Leno's siblings include his late older brother, Patrick, who was a Vietnam veteran and a lawyer.