Good evening,
State Sen. Paul Gazelka entered the race for governor Wednesday. He's the latest Republican seeking to challenge incumbent DFL Gov. Tim Walz. Gazelka, who recently stepped down as majority leader, joins Sen. Michelle Benson, former Sen. Scott Jensen, businessman Mike Marti, Lexington Mayor Mike Murphy, dermatologist Neil Shah and perennial candidate Bob Carney in the GOP race so far. [Read more from Brian Bakst]
Many of the issues that Republican gubernatorial candidates have been campaigning on are popular among Minnesota Republicans but not with the general electorate. The exception: crime. [Read more from MinnPost's Peter Callaghan]
One former and three current Minnesota lawmakers are running for governor. How unusual is it for Minnesota governors to have background in the state Legislature? While neither Walz nor ex-Gov. Mark Dayton had state legislative experience (both had congressional experience), for much of Minnesota's history, state legislative service was the norm — especially over two long periods from 1863 to 1931 and 1971 to 2011. But it's much rarer for people to go directly from the state Legislature to the governorship, as Govs. Tim Pawlenty and Wendell Anderson did. | |
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Heads up: Senate Republicans are apparently meeting tonight to elect a new caucus leader.
Among the possible candidates for Sen. Majority Leader is Sen. Tom Bakk, the Republican-aligned independent who was until last year the leader of the Senate DFL. If elected, Bakk wouldn't be the first lawmaker to lead both party's caucuses — ex-Sen. Dean Johnson served as both GOP and DFL caucus leader — but Bakk would do so after a remarkably short turnaround. [Read more from Brian Bakst]
Political context: The Iron Range from which Bakk hails is a longtime DFL stronghold that has moved sharply to the right over the past decade. In 2006, DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch won the Arrowhead region of northeastern Minnesota, minus Duluth, by more than 32,000 votes. In 2020, Donald Trump won the same area by nearly 8,000 votes. But that 40,000-vote swing over 14 years has to be considered against a 320,000-vote swing to the DFL in the Twin Cities suburbs. | |
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Republican operative Billy Grant is suing journalist and former Minnesota Republican Party staffer Rebecca Brannon for statements tying Grant to disgraced GOP donor Anton Lazzaro. Grant says these statements are false and defamatory. He's also suing DFL operative Justin Perpich, who amplified Brannon's messages — and who has filed an immediate countersuit saying Grant is a public figure trying to intimidate critics. [ Read Grant's lawsuit]
House Majority leader Ryan Winkler is considering running for the open Hennepin County Attorney office this fall. Incumbent Mike Freeman isn't seeking reelection. [Read more from the Star Tribune's Chao Xiong]
Virgil, quick come see: Richmond removed and dismembered a prominent equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. [ Read more from The Associated Press]
Future historians will probably find the contrast between ex-President Barack Obama signing a production deal with Netflix and ex-President Donald Trump signing a deal to provide commentary on a boxing matchan irresistible anecdote to illustrate the socio-political divides of early 20th century America.
Regular readers of this newsletter know I'm a sucker for "What if the U.S. were a multiparty democracy?" hypotheticals. The New York Times delivered just that with an interactive that aligned readers with one of six hypothetical parties: a left-wing Progressive Party, a social-democratic American Labor Party, a left-liberal New Liberal Party, a right-liberal Growth and Opportunity Party, a socially conservative Christian Conservative Party and a right-populist Patriot Party. [ Read more from Lee Drutman in the New York Times]
Something completely different: Dataviz expert Erin Davis used satellite data to depict the average color of the United States as it changed throughout the year. Watch the northern U.S. shift between brown and green and white as plants bloom and snow falls, while the southeast stays green year-round and large parts of the inter-mountain west are brown much of the year. (You can even see smoke from California wildfires briefly.) [Read more] | | |
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| Listen: Obviously we're going with The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." [Watch] | |
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