Skip Humphrey

Hubert Horatio "Skip" Humphrey III (born June 26, 1942) is a former Minnesota politician who served as Attorney General of the state from 1983 to 1999. He was a state senator from 1973 to 1983. Humphrey now leads the Office of Older Americans as the Assistant Director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
A Democrat, Humphrey is the son of the late Vice President Hubert Humphrey and the late U.S. Senator Muriel Humphrey Brown. He was the Democratic candidate for Minnesota governor in the hotly contested three-way election of 1998.

Humphrey attended American University, where he was a member of Alpha Sigma Phi, Beta Chi chapter, and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School.

Humphrey was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 1972 and served as a state senator from 1973 to 1983. He was elected Minnesota Attorney General in 1982, one of the DFL Party's most popular candidates ever in terms of popular vote. He served in the office for four consecutive terms, from 1983 to 1999.

In 1988, he ran for the same US Senate seat that his father and his mother previously held, but was defeated by incumbent Independent-Republican Senator David Durenberger. Despite this loss, Humphrey remained well regarded in Minnesota political circles and around the country: he served as president of the National Association of Attorneys General, and in 1996 President Bill Clinton gratefully welcomed him as the state chairperson of his reelection campaign.

By 1998 he was again encouraged to run for higher office, and entered the DFL gubernatorial primary, winning handily in a crowded field (which included another scion of an eminent Minnesota political family, Ted Mondale). In the general election, both Humphrey and Republican candidate Norm Coleman lost to the third-party candidacy of Jesse Ventura in a tumultuous race.

Humphrey was an enthusiastic successor of his father's New Deal-inspired political philosophy, and throughout his career he remained devoted to traditional progressive ideals as well as their more modern manifestations: "If you think that being too liberal means raising the minimum wage, advocating health care for everyone, protecting the environment, taking on the tobacco industry, enacting campaign finance reform, and putting more cops on the streets, then guess what? That's what Minnesotans want." One of his most passionately held principles was an implacable opposition to tobacco and its powerful political lobby: in 1999, the World Health Organization awarded him the Director-General's Prize for outstanding global contribution to tobacco control.

While a student at American University, Humphrey met Nancy Lee Jeffery, the daughter of a US Navy captain. Much to their parents' surprise and delight, the two were married while spending the summer of 1963 in Europe. The Humphreys are the parents of three children, including Hubert H. "Buck" Humphrey IV, who ran for Minnesota Secretary of State in 2002, losing by three percentage points to Republican nominee Mary Kiffmeyer.

Humphrey was a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota, where he taught public health policy and law, and was also a consultant to Tunheim Partners, a Minnesota-based communications and public affairs firm. Beginning in 2004, Humphrey served as the president of the Minnesota chapter of the AARP, and later was a member of the Board of Directors of the National AARP.

• 1998 election for Governor
  • Jesse Ventura (Ref.), 37%
  • Norm Coleman (R), 34%
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL), 29%
• 1998 election for Governor – Democratic Primary
  • Skip Humphrey (DFL), 37%
  • Mike Freeman (DFL), 19%
  • Doug Johnson (DFL), 19%
  • Mark Dayton (DFL), 18%
  • Ted Mondale (DFL), 7%
• 1994 election for state Attorney General
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL) (inc.), 1,115,285
  • Sharon Anderson (IR), 488,753
  • Dean W. Amundson (Grassroots Party), 69,776
• 1990 election for state Attorney General
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL) (inc.), 1,126,447
  • Kevin E. Johnson (IR), 655,282
• 1988 election for U.S. Senate
  • David Durenberger (R) (inc.), 56%
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL), 41%
• 1986 election for state Attorney General
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL) (inc.), 985,569
  • Lew Freeman (IR), 399,483
  • Derrick P. Grimmer (Grassroots Party), 16,394
• 1982 election for state Attorney General
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL), 61.72%
  • Elliot Rothenberg (IR), 37.24%
  • Samuel A. Faulk (Conservative People's Party), 1.04%
• 1980 election for State Senate (District 44)
  • Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL) (inc.), unopposed (19,579 votes, 100%)