Jesse Ventura Went From the Wrestling Ring to the Governor's Office — Let's Look at His Politics

When it comes to professional wrestling, landing on a look and vibe is half the battle. Just ask one wrestler-turned-governor. Jesse "The Body" Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minn. Following high school he joined the United States Navy, and served from 1969 until 1975 as a Navy SEAL. He has earned numerous awards, including the Vietnam Service Medal.

Perhaps his time performing heroic acts made Ventura curious about the other side of the street. When his professional wrestling career began in 1975, Ventura emerged as a heel, which is a kind of character who thrives on being disliked. It's almost as if Jesse needs to do a 180 every few years because after wrestling, he became a politician. You definitely need to be liked to get elected. How did he do it? Let's look at his somewhat hard-to-pin-down politics.

According to the Minnesota Historical Society, Ventura joined the Minnesota chapter of Ross Perot’s national Reform Party in 1997. The Reform Party is a centrist and populist party that is moderate and right down the middle. They support "moderate fiscal and economic platforms mixed with strong calls for ethics and electoral reform based on populist beliefs."

Ventura announced his intention to run for Minnesota state governor in 1998, with the full support of the Reform Party. He ended up winning with 37 percent of the vote. During his first legislative session, Ventura secured income tax cuts and sales tax rebates for taxpayers, and increased funding for public schools.

His one and only term as governor was somewhat controversial based on Ventura's big personality. He took a lot of side gigs that included refereeing wrestling matches and commentating on professional football games. Television appearances often involved leaving the state, which cost taxpayers money. Ventura was also frustrated with the legislature and proposed a constitutional change to a unicameral legislature. It didn't work. By 2000, he had switched to the Independent Party.

In May 2020, the Green Party announced that Ventura was their newest member. "Over the past couple of years, Mr. Ventura has shown support for the Green Party and is very serious about addressing climate change," said the political party in a press release. The previous month, Ventura posted to X (formerly Twitter) that if he was going to run for president, the Green Party would be his first choice. In a reply to himself, Ventura said he was still an Independent.

Ventura officially declined a run for president on May 8, 2020, at a press conference, per FOX9. "Unfortunately, I don’t see the logistics coming into play; time is an element," said Ventura. "The Green Party names their candidate in July, I truthfully couldn’t become available until mid to end of June, so therefore the system itself will stop me from pursuing it as it is right now." Despite this, the Alaska Green Party still nominated Ventura in September 2020. He got 2,673 votes in that state.

Following the January 2026 fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Ventura shared some of his thoughts about the country. Ventura told FOX9 that the Republicans didn't seem to want to "abide by the Constitution." The former governor said America was a third-world country now, and he knows this because he spent 17 months in Southeast Asia while President Trump, a draft dodger, was playing golf. "In third-world countries, they have the military doing their police work."