Good morning. Here's the Digest to get your week started. 1. Primary cost estimates jump. Minnesota’s presidential nomination primary next year will cost more than state officials previously thought. After surveying all 87 Minnesota counties, Secretary of State Steve Simon said Friday that it will cost $11.9 million for local officials to administer the presidential nomination primary on March 3, 2020. Back in 2016, Simon originally estimated the cost at about a third of that - $3.6 million - when lawmakers were considering the bill that authorized the presidential primary. Simon said the same legislation directs the state to pay back local governments for their costs. “I do hope and expect that the Legislature will stand by its commitment in 2016 to reimburse the counties and the cities so that they are not left holding the bag for the costs of this extra election.” (MPR News) 2. Will Midwestern women be key to 2020? Rillastine Wilkins has worked for decades to help women become a powerful political force in this community on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore. Those efforts paid off in 2018, when Muskegon County voters helped elect a female governor, secretary of state, attorney general and U.S. senator. The results put Wilkins and other women here on the leading edge of a shift that is reshaping politics across the Midwest and nationally: Female voters were pivotal last year and are top targets of both parties in the 2020 presidential race.Minnesota is part of that trend. Women helped elect two newcomers, Democratic U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Ilhan Omar, in 2018, and several female challengers beat men in state House races. Women will again be a critical factor in Michigan and in other Midwest battlegrounds in 2020. Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes — the smallest winning margin in the state’s presidential election history. The state — along with Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota — will be ground zero in his re-election campaign. (Star Tribune) 3. Walz, business leaders head to Asia. Gov. Tim Walz is headed to Japan and South Korea this weekend, making his first international trip as governor to bolster ties with key economic partners in Asia as the U.S. trade war with China continues to stir fears of a global economic slowdown. “I want to reassure them that their trading partners in the States, and certainly in our private sector businesses here in Minnesota, we’re prepared to do what we’ve always done. … There will be a day when these trade wars will end and we’ll come out on the other side,” Walz said. Governors from across the Midwest and Japan will meet for a conference in Tokyo, where they will hear from corporate executives and politicians and take city tours. The business conclave also will feature some “speed dating” between businesses and state leaders, said Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Commissioner Steve Grove. The decision to make Asia the focus of Walz’s first international trip sends a message against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s trade wars, Grove said. (Star Tribune)
4. Public projects wishlist grows. Minnesota lawmakers hit the road last week to start three months of tours to sites of public works projects that state agencies and local governments are asking them to fund next year. Total cost: $5.3 billion. That is a record-shattering figure for state bonding requests. Funding appeals for capital improvements always go up, but this year the ask shot up from $3.3 billion in 2018. What gives? “Deferred maintenance” is the main culprit, state Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans said in an interview last week. After an assessment of state-owned building conditions in 2018, the Department of Administration projected state agencies, the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State college campuses will need a combined $8.2 billion for catch-up maintenance, restorations and replacements over the next 10 years. That would require $1.6 billion every two years or substantially more than governors and lawmakers currently authorize in each two-year capital budget. And that figure doesn’t include money sought by cities, counties and other local government entities. (Pioneer Press)
5. DFL worries about release of voter lists. Guidelines for the state’s new presidential nomination convention were posted by the Minnesota Secretary of State Thursday — and the chair of the state DFL party might not be too happy about them. It’s not that Minnesota Democrats aren’t supportive of holding a presidential primary. The DFL, like Republican Party of Minnesota, was part of negotiations for how to implement a primary to replace precinct caucuses as the means of divvying up delegates for the national parties’ 2020 nominating conventions. In fact, the DFL prevailed in a dispute over the voter file: the valuable lists detailing which party individual voters chose when requesting ballots. Those lists are now exempt from public disclosure, though state law requires that the DFL will get both the list of their voters and the list of voters who chose a Republican ballot. The Minnesota GOP will get the same information. So what the DFL’s problem? Secretary of State Steve Simon’s interpretation of the law passed by legislators in May means that Minnesota’s newest major parties, the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party and the Legal Marijuana Now Party, will get the same lists, even if they don’t hold presidential primaries on March 3, 2020. The DFL is worried that the lists — with the names of hundreds of thousands of DFL and DFL-leaning voters — will help the two pro-marijuana legalization parties skim votes from Democratic candidates in the 2020 general election. ( MinnPost) | 
