Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know to start your day, in 402 words. Cloudy with highs in the 40s. It’s a simple forecast statewide for this Wednesday. Clouds will decrease tonight and lows will be in the 30s. More on Updraft. | Forecast Help us help you — some important elections are coming up. Nov. 5 is Election Day in Minnesota. Much is at stake: four county commissioner elections, 107 school district elections and 30 municipal elections. However, most of these races will receive little to no media coverage. That’s where we come in. Send in your questions or story ideas via this link and MPR News journalists, including me, will do our best to find out what you want to know. Abortion rights took center stage at the Democratic debate as moderators largely ignored the climate crisis. But largely, the theme was piling on criticism of Elizabeth Warren, the clearest example so far that the Massachusetts senator is the party’s frontrunner. Amy Klobuchar had 13 minutes, 18 seconds of speaking time at the debate. The New York Times’ tracking of minutes put the Minnesota senator third in speaking time last night, trailing Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden. However, Klobuchar’s speaking time was closer to the four candidates behind her than it was No. 2 Biden’s 16 minutes, 39 seconds of talking. Warren got over 22 minutes, 47 seconds on the mic. Omar and AOC back Bernie Sanders. Both Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced their endorsement of the Vermont senator Tuesday following the debate.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is hiring up in Minnesota. The Hill reports the president’s re-election campaign is opening a field office here, thinking Minnesotans could lean Republican in 2020. In the 2016 run, Trump had one staffer in Minnesota who also helped cover Colorado for the campaign.
Was Target’s minimum wage bump just a ruse? The retailer made national headlines earlier this year for bumping its hourly starting pay to $13 an hour, with the goal of hitting $15 by the end of next year. But CNN Business reports that Target store workers say the higher wages aren’t helping — they’re getting scheduled fewer hours. A Target spokesperson shot down the story’s premise in a statement to local WCCO TV.
A meth crisis is quietly growing in Wisconsin. Patrick Schorr with Wisconsin Watch reports that methamphetamine cases in the state have increased 450 percent, and more money is necessary to fight the problem. Read Schorr’s full investigation here.
— Cody Nelson, MPR News | 
