His name is Jeff Johnson. He wants to be governor.

Sept. 21--Just about everybody knows a Jeff Johnson, but one of them has a name recognition problem.

Just over six weeks before the election, a large share of Minnesota voters don't know who Republican candidate for governor Jeff Johnson is, and many who recognize his name haven't formed an opinion of him yet.

Meanwhile, the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and a DFL-allied political action committee have spent the past several weeks pummeling Johnson in television ads as a right-wing extremist.

"Tea Party Republican Jeff Johnson, that's my name," the candidate joked about the label DFLers are trying to pin on him.

But he isn't worried. Johnson insists he still has time to introduce himself to Minnesota's 3.1 million registered voters and overtake DFL Gov. Mark Dayton.

All he needs, he said, is enough money to start airing his own television ads.

"I've got to get on TV," he said. "I need about $1.5 million for the last six weeks. We will get there."

Johnson, a Hennepin County commissioner and former state legislator, also is trailing in the polls. In four statewide surveys taken since the Aug. 12 primary, Dayton led Johnson by an average of 9 points -- 48 percent to 39 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com. A recent poll in the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune newspaper showed about one third of registered voters didn't recognize Johnson's name and 40 percent had not formed an opinion about him.

The polls do not alarm the GOP candidate. Four years ago, he said, Republican Tom Emmer trailed Dayton by 18 points in early September and lost the election by less than half a percentage point. And in 2006, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty entered the fall with a 14-point lead over DFL challenger Mike Hatch and won by less than 1 percent.

"This thing is just by nature going to get much closer," Johnson told about 40 local government officials, business owners and Republican activists during a recent candidate forum at Red Wing's historic St. James Hotel.

Moreover, fewer than half the voters surveyed supported Dayton. Johnson said that signals vulnerability for a well-known incumbent.

Carleton College political science professor Steven Schier agreed that the polls show "a majority of voters are not sold on Mark Dayton."

"They could be persuaded otherwise," Schier said.

But in a sign his operation may be struggling, Johnson replaced his campaign manager Friday. He brought in David Gaither, a former state senator and chief of staff to former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, to take over from Scott Crockett, who led Johnson's successful bids to win his party's endorsement in May and the Republican primary in August.

Johnson is dialing for dollars and making direct pitches at fundraising receptions.

He said it's "going well" and he would start getting out his message in TV spots by the end of the month.

Dayton has reserved more than $1 million of air time in the Twin Cities media market from this week through Election Day.

Johnson said his ads would be straightforward. "Dayton and I have very different visions for Minnesota's future," he said. "I will point out where I think his vision is wrong, what I would do differently, and do it in as positive a way as possible."

That's Johnson's style. He's an affable, mild-mannered Norwegian Lutheran. He criticizes Dayton's policies without being angry about it.

"He exudes Minnesota nice," Schier said. "That's important for a conservative candidate. He can't look like Attila the Hun."

Where 2010 GOP nominee Emmer was an outspoken and sometimes "hot" candidate, Schier said, "Johnson is much cooler."

But when outraged, Johnson can add some heat. That happened last week when he accused Dayton of "breathtaking incompetence" after the state's largest health-plan provider pulled out of the MNsure insurance exchange and the administration abruptly reversed its stand on releasing a controversial sex offender.

"I have joked throughout the campaign that as a Norwegian Lutheran from northern Minnesota, I don't get all that worked up or all that emotional about things," he said at a Capitol news conference, "but the past 24 hours and this governor have practically put me over the edge.

"I believe that the Minnesotans who are being hurt by the breathtaking incompetence of Governor Dayton ought to be mad as hell right now, and they ought not to put up with it anymore."

Earlier, the friendly Red Wing crowd appeared to appreciate the candidate's cooler style. After he spoke, former state Sen. John Howe, the host of the forum, said: "Everybody really likes Jeff. They like his demeanor. The feedback I got was that more people need to get to know him."

Democrats acknowledge Johnson is a friendly foe.

"There's no doubt Jeff Johnson is a nice guy," state DFL Chairman Ken Martin said recently. "(But) you can be a nice guy and still have extreme positions."

DFLers have been trying to paint Johnson with a tea-party brush.

Martin said Johnson sought the tea party endorsement and produced video clips that suggested the candidate had done so. Johnson responded that he was seeking the support of tea party members who were also Republican activists, not the party itself.

He agrees with the tea party on some issues. For instance, he said: "I believe in the Constitution. I have pledged to follow the Constitution, and I believe government has grown too powerful."

But he said he also agrees with and seeks the support of moderate Republicans, Ron Paul Republicans, pro-business Republicans and many political independents.

State GOP Chairman Keith Downey said Johnson has done a remarkable job of uniting Republicans after the divisive primary election last month. One bit of evidence: The three candidates he defeated -- Scott Honour, Marty Seifert and Kurt Zellers -- all are campaigning for Johnson.

At campaign stops, the 47-year-old candidate from Plymouth introduces himself as a typical, middle-class dad. He tells audiences he grew up in Detroit Lakes, married his college sweetheart, Sondi, after they graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, earned a law degree from Georgetown University, and now he and his wife have two teenage sons.

He was elected to three terms in the Minnesota House and currently is serving his second term as a Hennepin County commissioner. He doesn't mention that he lost the 2006 attorney general's race to DFLer Lori Swanson by 13 points.

On the stump, Johnson delivers the same three-point message that he launched his campaign with 16 months ago.

"Job creation and the business climate is job No. 1," he told the Care Providers of Minnesota board of directors in Bloomington this month. He said Minnesota's high taxes and burdensome regulations discourage businesses from locating or expanding here.

"My philosophy is that taxes should be low, broad and simple, with low being the most important of the three," he said in an interview.

He predicted to the care providers that Dayton would brag about the state's low unemployment rate every day. "But if you scratch the surface, you find we're leaving a lot of people behind" in low-paying jobs, he said.

"We've got too many college graduates living in their parents' basements. ... We've got too many middle-aged men and women making 60 or 70 percent of what they were making before" the Great Recession.

Although DFLers have criticized him for voting to cut some state aid to schools, education is another Johnson priority. He said he feels morally obligated to close the achievement gap between students of color and their white classmates.

He calls for allowing schools to hire and fire teachers based on merit, not tenure, and he supports the Teach for America program that places young teachers in struggling inner-city schools -- provisions that were in two bills that Dayton vetoed.

As his third priority, he proposes a top-to-bottom audit of all state programs to bolster the ones that produce results and scrap those that don't.

If Johnson can raise enough money to compete in the TV air war, state GOP Chairman Downey said, the party is prepared to wage the "ground game" he needs to get his supporters to the polls.

Last spring, the party opened 18 field offices across the state to recruit volunteers and guide them in making phone calls, door knocking and delivering literature. He said the party has become far more sophisticated in "plugging those people in and giving them a chance to help out.

"I don't think we've ever seen anything like this on the Republican side."

Don Davis of the Forum News Service contributed to this report.

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