Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday.
Campaign fundraising numbers are in, and DFL Gov. Tim Walz is in a commanding position over his Republican-endorsed challenger Scott Jensen.MPR’s Brian Bakst reports through July 18, Walz has built up a nearly nine-time cash advantage over Jensen. The $4.98 million Walz has banked will give him more latitude than Jensen has with the $581,000 he had saved up. DFL incumbents also had sizable cash advantages in the attorney general and secretary of state races where Keith Ellison and Steve Simon are after new terms. Ellison’s closest opponent, the GOP endorsed Jim Schultz, kept pace with the incumbent in the most recent fundraising period. Schultz must first get by a primary challenge from 2018 Republican nominee Doug Wardlow, who trails the others in fundraising and available money. Simon raised more than three times what Republican Secretary of State candidate Kim Crockett did and has a clear edge in banked dollars — $679,000 to $77,000. Republican Ryan Wilson, who is the challenger in the state auditor’s race, is the only member of his party’s ticket to fare better than the DFL incumbent. Wilson has about $91,000 in reserve compared to $32,000 for Auditor Julie Blaha. Wilson has built up that advantage partly by paying for many campaign services out of his own pocket.
Minnesota candidates hope the way to your vote is through your sweet tooth. So far in 2022, candidates have dished out more than $18,000 to buy candy to toss out at parades. And that’s just the ones who bothered to break it down, including one candidate who secured 60 pounds of Tootsie Rolls to carry her through parade season. Brian dug deep into the latest campaign reports for that gem and other notable spending beyond the lawn signs, brochures, banners and commercials people come to expect about campaigns. His favorite? A $388 charge to rid a campaign event of pesky mosquitos on a summer evening.
And Peter Callaghan at MinnPost confirms that Walz will opt out of public financing and spending limits for his campaign while adding some details about other candidates for statewide office: Walz and Secretary of State Steve Simon informed the Campaign Finance Board last week they would not submit requests for funding. As of the most-recent campaign finance reports, both campaigns had already raised more money than the program would have allowed them to spend had they enlisted. Endorsed GOP candidates for both jobs – Scott Jensen for governor and Kim Crockett for secretary of state – have submitted applications to the board that could net them hundreds of thousands of dollars in the governor’s race and tens of thousands of dollars in the secretary of state race. In the race for attorney general, the pattern is opposite, with incumbent DFLer Keith Ellison opting into the program and accepting spending limits while the two major GOP candidates have not. Both endorsed GOP candidate James Schultz and 2018 nominee Doug Wardlow have informed the CFB that they will not be accepting public subsidies or abiding by the spending limits.
Speaking of campaign fundraising, the New York Times had an interesting story yesterday: Online fund-raising has slowed across much of the Republican Party in recent months, an unusual pullback of small donors that has set off a mad rush among Republican political operatives to understand why — and reverse the sudden decline before it damages the party’s chances this fall…The money gap is so pronounced that Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, an endangered Democratic incumbent, raised more online last quarter — $12.3 million — than the combined WinRed quarterly hauls of the Republican Senate nominees or presumptive nominees in seven key contests: Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
It was a bit of a head-scratcher when state Rep. Jeremy Munson filed to run in the Republican primary in the 1st Congressional District after narrowly losing the special primary to Brad Finstad in May. Now the Star Tribune reports he’s trying to win: Munson isn't a choice in the Aug. 9 special election where voters under the old first district lines will make their pick between Finstad and former Hormel Foods CEO Jeff Ettinger, a DFLer, to fill the final few months of the late GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn's term. But Munson is on the ballot for a separate contest that same day — a regular Republican primary to decide who will be on the November general election ballot. Voters will then elect someone to represent the redrawn district for a full two-year term. Early voting has been going on for weeks, and Finstad and Munson are the only two GOP candidates on the Aug. 9 primary ballot. Munson charged in a statement that "over the last few weeks Brad has failed to show he's the conservative to fight inflation." "Right now more than ever, we need someone who's a committed fiscal conservative," Munson said in a follow up interview, saying Congress should slow government spending. "Brad's not the right candidate to do that."
Finally, this is the last day on the job for MPR reporter Tim Pugmire. Tim is retiring after nearly 32 years at MPR News, the last 17 on the politics beat. He’s smart, steady, fair and diligent. He’s a great colleague and a good friend, and we’ll miss him. | 