Good morning, and welcome to another Monday.
A new poll in the Minnesota governor’s race shows incumbent DFLer Tim Walz leading Republican Scott Jensen, but the race is tight.A MinnPost/Embold Research poll of 1,585 Minnesota voters conducted last week shows Walz with 47 percent and Jensen at 42. Five percent support another candidate and another 5 percent are undecided in the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
Abortion is already a prominent issue in TV ads this campaign, but the topic will get more attention soon. MPR’s Brian Bakst reports the Minnesota Family Institute, which is aligned with the socially conservative Minnesota Family Council, said Sunday it has reserved $300,000 in time in what it’s calling “one of the largest pro-life ad buys ever in Minnesota.” The ads featuring stories of women expressing regret about having had abortions will begin airing on broadcast stations this week after being in rotation on cable stations previously. Republican candidates have sought to downplay the significance of abortion in this year’s campaign after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that vastly weakened federal abortion protections. Democrats have used the issue as a motivator for abortion-rights supporters; their candidates and allied groups have aired millions of dollars in ads focused on abortion access.
DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison and his Republican opponent Jim Schultz debated for the first time on Friday on MPR News. They talked about their records, and their priorities, but mostly about the increase in crime over the past couple years and what to do about it. MPR’s Dana Ferguson reports Schultz came out early, saying that violent crime should be the primary focus of the job. And he said that Ellison had a “pathetic” record to show for himself during his time in office. “We’re living through the worst uptick in crime in many decades and it is not enough for the attorney general of Minnesota to throw up his hands and say, ‘I can’t really do much here, the only thing I can do is sue Fleet Farm,’” Schultz said “That is not enough, that is not enough and what we need to do is have a roster of world-class criminal prosecutors that can support county attorneys around the state and ensure that we end this revolving door where criminals are not held accountable for their actions.” Ellison, meanwhile, focused on his track record in office, getting convictions against violent offenders and working on various cases aimed at protecting consumers. And he fired back at Schultz, saying that the Republican doesn’t have the experience to do the job. “I have presided over an office that has prosecuted nearly 50 serious crimes, murder, sexual conduct,” Ellison said. “Jim has never set foot in a courtroom in his life and I have fought for consumers and workers, and Jim has been a hedge fund lawyer, enlarging the profits of the biggest companies in the world during a pandemic.”
If you missed the debate you can find it here. And Dana compiled five takeaways.
Republican 6th District Rep. Tom Emmer is trying to win control of the House for the GOP and hoping to advance in the leadership ranks if he does it.The Star Tribune had the story: Running the House GOP's campaign arm, the Minnesota congressman has faulted Democrats for economic struggles, border issues and rising crime as he tries to deliver Republicans the House majority in next month's midterm elections. If it pays off, the strategy could help Emmer win a coveted GOP leadership spot, making him the highest ranking Minnesotan in Congress. If it fails, Emmer could be blamed for House Republicans failing to take advantage of a favorable political environment for the party. "[Democrats are] on the wrong side of all of these issues," Emmer said in an interview. "They don't have any answers for them, and that's why I'm very confident that voters are going to make a change in November."
Can a Democrat reclaim an Austin area seat in the Minnesota House this year?MinnPost has a profile of former Austin Mayor Tom Stiehm, a former Marine with a 30-year law enforcement career, who is running against Republican Rep. Patricia Mueller this year. From the story: Stiehm did not seek re-election as mayor in 2020. But he said he was spurred to run for the House as a Democrat, largely because of disgust with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn results of the presidential election. Stiehm has blasted Mueller for attending an event in April 2021 hosted by the group Minnesotans4Freedom. That organization was created, according to local reporting, by a man who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and who doubted the legitimacy of the 2020 election, but who later criticized the violence and said he remained outside the Capitol. Mueller said, however, that she does believe people are frustrated with changes made to the election process without legislative approval. “Do I think that the president is the real president? I think that the craziness of this is that we will never know,” Mueller said. “Do I think there’s enough votes to flip the election? No.” Regardless, Stiehm paints himself as a political centrist driven to the DFL by a far-right GOP. Support for Trump, he believes, has faded. “I think most people are in the middle,” he said.
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