ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — As Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton nears the end of eight years in office to cap a four-decade political career, he’s content to take a back seat in the race to replace him. At least for now.

The Democratic governor has repeatedly declined to take a swing at his predecessor, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty — the man he faults for leaving the state with a $6 billion budget deficit when Dayton took office in 2011 — even as Pawlenty considers running for his old job this fall. And in an interview with The Associated Press, Dayton said he will wait to make an endorsement until after voters have picked the Democratic candidate from among the three people who are running for his party’s nomination.

Above all, Dayton said he wants to give the Democratic candidates space from his two terms in office.

“I don’t think anybody should run on a third Dayton term,” he said last week. “This election is not about me. It’s about after me.”

Dayton first won the job in a 2010 election that saw major GOP gains nationwide. Aside from a two-year period of Democratic control of state government in his first term — when he and the Legislature raised taxes on the state’s wealthiest earners, increased the minimum wage and legalized same-sex marriage — he has spent much of his tenure tangling with Republican majorities.

But Dayton has no regrets about deciding against running for a third term.

“I’m no George Washington, but he was right: Two terms is enough in the executive branch,” quipped Dayton, who is now 71 and has faced health problems during his tenure, including a series of spinal surgeries that have left him with a painful limp.

Dayton says he does plan to help his party’s governor campaign this fall and work to help Democrats take back control of the state House. Rep. Tim Walz, State Auditor Rebecca Otto and state Rep. Erin Murphy are running for the Democratic nomination for governor, facing an unsettled field of Republicans.

Dayton has plenty to offer fellow Democrats on the campaign trail.

He was the first Democrat elected as Minnesota’s governor in nearly three decades — first in a narrow victory after a monthslong recount in 2010, then in his convincing re-election in 2014. Few Minnesota Democrats have been more successful in elections overall than Dayton: He was elected state auditor in 1990 and won one term as a U.S. senator before becoming governor.