Hennepin County prosecutors on Wednesday said they charged conservative provocateur James O’Keefe and another man with felonies for unlawful voting and identity theft for filming themselves misrepresenting their identities to election judges during the Minnesota Aug. 11 primary.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said they were alerted by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office that James O'Keefe, Cameron Higby and others were trying to undermine the state's vouching system.

Videos posted by O'Keefe’s operation show them wearing burkas outside precincts during the primary. Moriarty said the voter names they used included some residents who were dead and at least one who voted.

In the videos, O’Keefe, using an accent, asks workers at polling places if he can vouch for other voters. The election workers explain the law around vouching as one of his team members films and then his team walks out.

"Alright guys, it’s Election Day in Minneapolis. James O’Keefe and I are going to go around the city to different polling stations and we're going to see if they're going to allow us to vote without IDs and then we're going to see if they are going to allow us to vouch for other people who aren't even registered to vote,” Higby said in the video posted to YouTube.

Secretary of State Steve Simon later said the poll workers did exactly what they were supposed to do to protect the integrity of the election.

“I think it’s pretty clear they did not intend to vote. That’s not the question here,” Moriarty said Wednesday as she unveiled the charges against O’Keefe and Higby.

While neither man signed the oath to vouch for the other would-be voter — an act Moriarty said would have been felony perjury — “you cannot give somebody else’s name and misrepresent yourself as you go through the process.”

An initial court appearance for O’Keefe and Higby has been set for Nov. 16.

The state has several ways for unregistered voters to register on Election Day, including vouching. To vouch for someone, a voter who is already registered in the precinct goes with an unregistered voter to the voting precinct and signs an oath confirming the unregistered voter’s address. Under state law, a registered voter can vouch for up to eight people.

In a press release in August, O’Keefe’s group, which calls itself the “Justice League,” said the people in the video “did not cast ballots. The investigation was intended to test the limits of Minnesota’s vouching law and document how election workers apply it on Election Day.”

O’Keefe is known for making undercover videos. His videos have led to criminal charges against him in the past and he was caught by Washington Post reporters in 2017 for attempting to sell them on a false story.

“It is not against the law to be performative. It is not against the law to be offensive,” Moriarty told reporters. But “you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use someone’s identity and say that to our election judges as you apply for a ballot.”

In a statement after the charges were announced Wednesday, Simon said “Minnesota’s enduring tradition of high voter turnout and excellence in elections administration is due in part to the work we all do to keep polling places as ‘islands of calm.’ ”

“Any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated. We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for holding these individuals to account,” Simon said.

MPR News reporter Peter Cox contributed to this story.

Use the audio player above to hear MPR News reporter Jon Collins explain this story on Minnesota Now.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Social media videos believed to be produced with artificial intelligence and linked to Russia are misusing real people’s names and photographs to spread disinformation about two Democratic Senate candidates in the final stretch of midterm voting.

One of the targets is Sherrod Brown, who is running against Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio. The video, which appears to include some AI manipulation, depicts a newscast and includes pictures of Haya Akbik, who interned for Brown several years ago, and other former staff members.

It was appalling to Akbik, who told The Associated Press that any claims attributed to her in the clip are “completely made up."

“It’s my name, it’s my reputation, making this allegation, and it’s just completely false,” she said. “And it harms the senator, someone else, in the process. So, it’s just messed up.”

The videos demonstrate how foreign adversaries continue to use a familiar playbook to try to influence American voters who are deciding which party controls Congress next year. The threat could be magnified with AI, a powerful tool for fabricating damaging information that can sometimes appear very real.

Another target is James Talarico, who is running against Republican Ken Paxton for a Senate seat in Texas. The video, also believed to include some AI manipulation, is framed as a direct-to-camera confessional from a former student of Talarico.

“The most powerful people in the world know they can't beat James Talarico with the truth, so they're slandering him with AI deepfakes, foreign bots, and conspiracy theories to protect their broken, corrupt political system,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement.

The social media company X has taken down the initial posts that shared the videos and suspended the users for violating the platform’s rules. However, copies could still be found online Tuesday — some with hundreds of shares — demonstrating how difficult it can be to contain disinformation that can proliferate in the final days of an election.

Experts see a resemblance to Russian clips from 2024

The videos resemble clips from a Russian network known as Storm-1516 that targeted former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, two years ago.

The new ones bear similar hallmarks and are likely products of the same network, according to Clemson University professor and media forensics expert Darren Linvill. He found that the accounts that shared recent material had also shared former content from Storm-1516.

The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, it has denied interfering in U.S. elections.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has publicly identified some videos as Russian disinformation in past election cycles, also didn't respond to a request for comment.

Hany Farid, a Dartmouth College professor who studies artificial intelligence deepfakes, said his analyses showed that videos targeting Brown and Talarico were likely either generated or manipulated using the technology.

He noted the video targeting Brown is a “fairly low-tech fake." The other one, targeting Talarico, is likely generated by AI and “it is consistent with previous disinformation campaigns released close to Election Day,” Farid said.

Akbik said the video featuring her shows the importance of Congress regulating “AI slop on the internet.”

“This is so damaging,” she said.

Campaign finance reports released Tuesday show more than $55 million flowing into the two most competitive state-level races — with more being spent by outside groups than by the candidates’ own campaigns.

Much of the money is going toward TV ads blanketing the airwaves in the runup to the Nov. 3 election.

The reports filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board run through Oct. 19, so they don’t yet show the entire financial picture. State law requires the reports to be released one week before Election Day.

Governor’s race

Outside groups have spent more than $18 million so far in the race for the governor’s office.

The biggest chunk, more than $9 million, was spent by Restore Sanity, a GOP group that sprang up early this year to support Republican Lisa Demuth’s candidacy. It got most of its money from a national group largely funded by Wisconsin manufacturing magnate Richard Uihlein, according to outlets that have examined the group’s finances. Groups supporting Demuth also spent more than $5 million and groups opposing her spent more than $3 million.

But Democrat Amy Klobuchar’s campaign vastly outraised and outspent Demuth. Klobuchar raised more than $18 million, spent more than $16 million and still has around $2 million in cash.

Demuth’s campaign reported raising more than $5 million, including a $1.3 million public subsidy. She’s spent more than $5 million, with about half a million dollars left. Klobuchar chose not to abide by state spending limits, which meant her campaign didn’t receive a public subsidy and Demuth received a higher subsidy.

Four years ago, the total amount of spending in the governor’s race between DFL Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Scott Jensen was just shy of $36 million. This year’s race is already $3 million ahead of that, largely due to Klobuchar’s spending. In 2022, Walz raised just a third of what Klobuchar has raised so far and Jensen and Demuth raised roughly the same amount of money.

Attorney general race

In the attorney general race, outside groups have spent more than $12 million. That’s in addition to the amount raised and spent by the candidates.

Incumbent Democrat Keith Ellison’s campaign reported spending nearly $4.5 million, compared to Republican Ron Schutz’s campaign, which reported spending less than a third of that, nearly $1.3 million.

The attorney general’s race is expected to be among the most competitive statewide races this year. Ellison won his previous reelection campaign by less than one percentage point in a race that garnered nearly $16 million in outside spending in 2022.

Minnesota Legislature:

A handful of competitive state Senate races have topped $1 million in outside spending. DFLers are trying to hold on to their one-seat majority in the Senate.

Republicans are targeting DFL incumbents Grant Hauschild of Hermantown, Aric Putnam of St. Cloud and Rob Kupec of Moorhead as potential seats to flip. Outside groups have spent more than $8 million in those three races, with outside spending in Putnam’s race against Republican Bernie Perryman topping $3 million alone.

Democrats are hoping to pick up seats in the districts of Jim Abeler of Anoka and two open seats previously held by Republicans — Warren Limmer’s district in Maple Grove and Carla Nelson’s district in Rochester.

In the Rochester area, total spending in the race between DFL candidate Simon Glaser and Republican Nels Pierson is creeping towards $1 million. In Maple Grove, the total amount of spending has already surpassed $1.5 million as Republican Brady Hoag and DFLer Kristy Janigo vie for Limmer’s spot.

In the northwest suburbs, Minnesota Democrats see a top target in a moderate Republican senator who has hung on to his Anoka area seat for four terms: Sen. Jim Abeler.

School principal Angela Nelson, Abeler’s challenger, hopes to swing the seat to DFL control. It’s one of a handful of competitive races that could decide control of the Minnesota Senate heading into 2027.

While Abeler represents the region in the Senate, two Democrats — Zack Stephenson and Kari Rehrauer — represent it in the House. And Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump here by three percentage points. In his last win in 2022, Abeler won by only 186 votes out of more than 34,000 cast.

“You are at ground zero of the battle for the control of the Minnesota Senate right here,” Sen. Nick Frentz, the Senate DFL campaign chair, told volunteers for Nelson ahead of a door knock Sunday in Coon Rapids. “And we are going to win it this time.”

More than $1.3 million in outside spending has been dumped into the district to influence voters’ views on the candidates. And with one week left until Election Day, both candidates have been phone banking and door knocking to sway voters.

As he biked door-to-door last week across the district that includes parts of Andover, Anoka and Coon Rapids, Abeler highlighted his bipartisan work in the Legislature. First elected to the Minnesota House in 1998, he said his willingness to break with his party has given him staying power here.

“I still care. Because I think Minnesota is in a real hard place these days, and experience does help. Institutional memory does make a difference,” Abeler said. “Whoever wins as governor, I can work with either one of them. … I'm eager to be part of the solutions to keep us moving to be truly the North Star state.”

Abeler said he hears from several groups at the door — Republicans and Democrats, Trump fans and foes, and a lot of disaffected folks looking for government leaders to get along.

“They want us to work together and get something done, and the best work is when it's done collaboratively, where you trade off ideas, where you come up with the best idea,” Abeler said.

Nelson, who is running for office for the first time, said the district is also looking for something different.

“They're really looking for change, a change in leadership. We've had the same leadership here since I was in high school, and that was quite a long time ago,” Nelson said. “So it's time for some new perspective, new energy, and people are excited about that.”

Nelson said her experience leading a school would help her in elected office.

“Part of my job is that I listen and I learn from folks. I get perspective, and then I make a decision that's based on what's best for the biggest number of people without harming others, and I would say, as a senator, one of your biggest jobs is using your vote as your voice,” Nelson said.

She said she’d support legislation placing new restrictions on firearms and federal immigration agents — bills Abeler voted against.

“You can't say one thing and then vote another way. I'm committed to being honest and transparent, and then using my voice in my vote for my community,” Nelson said.

Attack ads on the airwaves

The flood of outside money can be seen in TV ads and mailers. While it’s not the legislative contest with the biggest price tag, independent expenditures in the Senate contest are almost ten times more than either candidate has raised through Oct. 19.

Outside spending in the race exceeded $1.3 million. Meanwhile, Abeler’s campaign brought in $133,427 and Nelson has raised $142,712.

Ads targeting Abeler allege he passed policies that allowed him to enrich himself while in office. And those targeting Nelson aim to tie her to higher state government spending and fraud in state programs.

Nelson and Abeler said they — along with voters they talk to — are sick of the noise.

“People can see right through that — that I'm passionate about helping my community. I'm an award-winning principal at an award-winning school under my leadership,” Nelson said. “The fact that they're kind of using those things against me, I think, just shows how worried they are that I'm going to flip this seat.”

Abeler said there should be more of an enforcement mechanism to keep campaign smears based on falsehoods off the air.

“I'm kind of numb to it, but it's not good for the industry, the government. It's not good for politics and what serves people,” Abeler said. “Politics is a means to get good work done, and so it shouldn't be ugly and painful.”

Over the next week, the ads will keep rolling. But so will Nelson and Abeler — she’s on an e-scooter, he’ll be on his bike — making their way to every door they can before Election Day.

It’s been a contentious few months for St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her.

In July, it was revealed that St. Paul police Chief Axel Henry filed a sexual harassment complaint against Her, leading to an investigation by an independent law firm.

In August, she directed the closure of an encampment near Pig’s Eye Park where the city says an estimated 140 people lived — a move some advocates pushed back against. Since then, many encampment residents have moved to one near Shepard Road.

In September, Henry sued Her, alleging unwanted touching, sexual comments and repeated attempts by Her to develop a closer personal relationship. Henry also alleged the city retaliated against him after he complained about her conduct.

In October, the city released the report from the independent investigation, which cleared Her of sexual harassment, but found she acted offensively and inappropriately.

Minnesota Now host Nina Moini asked Mayor Her about the city’s encampment response and Henry’s allegations in her first interview with MPR since these events.

Encampment response

Last week, the St. Paul City Council unanimously approved a resolution calling for 60 days of increased engagement before any future encampment clearings. It also calls for more low-barrier shelter options.

The non-binding resolution comes after the August closure of the Pig’s Eye Park encampment. The city had allocated $1 million toward expanding shelter bed capacity ahead of the clearing, but data from the city shows only seven of the estimated 140 people at Pig’s Eye Park opted in to shelter space.

Her said she supports the council’s plan, but contends much of what the council laid out is work the city is already doing when it comes to outreach and connecting people to resources.

Her said since August, the city and Ramsey County have been in contact with more than 300 people from the encampments.

Her announced in July a plan to eventually close down all encampments in the city, beginning with Pig’s Eye. Today, two encampments remain: one near Shepard Road, which has tripled in size since August, and another near a former Kmart.

Her said the city is working on both short- and long-term strategies, including looking for indoor shelter space for the upcoming winter season. However, the mayor said the city will still move forward with closing Shepard Road, but did not provide a clear timeline.

“We were told setting a date was not the right thing to do. And now we don't have a date, and now everyone says you need to set a date,” Her said. “It’s as if it doesn’t matter what it is that we do, we’re going to have criticism.”

Her said she’s balancing the needs of those living in the encampment and the surrounding neighborhood. She pointed to public safety concerns from nearby residents.

“As the mayor, I have to look at the perspectives of all of the people in the city, not just those in the encampments, but those also living near encampments,” she said.

Relationship with the police chief

Her declined to comment on the sexual harassment and retaliation allegations from Henry, citing the ongoing lawsuit against her.

The investigation called on the mayor to maintain professional boundaries, attend workplace conduct training and hire an executive coach at her own expense. When asked if she had taken any of those steps, she again declined to comment.

In response to a question about what her working relationship with the chief looks like, Her said First Assistant Mayor Erica Schumacher oversees communication with the police department. Her said this workflow is status quo and historically the police chief does not communicate “directly with the mayor.”

Her added the situation has “not at all” diminished her ability to carry out her responsibilities around public safety or other citywide matters.

Hear the full interview with St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her using the audio player above.

Left-wing livestreamer Hasan Piker and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar joined DFL state Sen. Omar Fateh on Monday evening for an event some Democrats criticized as divisive.

Piker is a self-described democratic-socialist and popular figure with many younger progressives who feel unrepresented by the Democratic Party. He has backed Democratic candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan.

Some Democrats, including governor hopeful U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, criticized Piker for past statements they deemed offensive and chided Omar and Fateh for appearing with someone they deem a polarizing figure on the eve of an election.

The event billed as “I’m the Host Now!” was held at the Theatre in the Round, a small venue with 245 seats in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis. The event was advertised as a curated conversation series hosted by Fateh and organized by a local group, Baddies 4 Progress, and communications firm Haus of C.

MPR News was invited to cover the event, then denied access at the last minute by Fateh, who said media was barred because of space concerns.

Erik Tanner, an event attendee from Mankato, said he used to not be politically involved until recently and believes democratic-socialism is the future of the party.

“We gotta move a little bit further over than where we're at, and the Democrats that are in charge right now don't really seem to be all that interested in doing that,” Tanner said.

Janette Corcelius, a Democratic Socialists of America member, said the condemnation from top Democratic officials was a “big mistake.”

“This is a really big election. The midterms can really turn the tide, especially as we're descending into fascism because of the Trump administration,” she said. “I think that they should have stood by him and Ilhan Omar and Omar Fateh and seen this as an opportunity to galvanize the youth and get the youth to vote for them.”

Before the event, Piker drew support in a surprise appearance at the University of Minnesota, driving around campus to give a ride to students to vote early.

The U.S. Census Bureau won’t count the nation’s population again until 2030. But the federal agency is making plans for the survey now. And the Trump Administration wants to change who gets counted, as well as the questions they’re asked.

Under a proposed rule announced last month, the census would no longer include immigrants who aren’t U.S. citizens or permanent residents. And it would stop collecting data on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

In Minnesota, the nonprofit Hmong American Partnership is urging people to submit public comment. Joining Minnesota Now to talk about why is the group’s president and CEO, May yer Thao.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he wouldn't be offended if some Republicans didn't want to campaign with him. He knows that he's taken intense criticism from the party's base — and from President Donald Trump — for his chamber's inability to pass voter legislation this year.

But Republican candidates in marquee Senate races have welcomed Thune's help as he’s traveled around the country in the weeks before the midterm elections, scrambling to save his majority.

That includes Rep. Ashley Hinson in this deep red corner of Iowa, a state that Republicans couldn’t have envisioned as a tossup race a year ago. Hinson is locked in a tight contest against Democrat Josh Turek to replace retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.

Hinson said she was grateful for Thune’s visit as the two spent Friday campaigning together in the northwest part of the state — a luncheon at the Sioux City chamber of commerce, a tour of the Iowa Air National Guard’s refueling wing, a roundtable with local business owners and meet-and-greets at a packed high school football game that night.

“I’m absolutely convinced that she flat has to win, and if she doesn’t, we’re not going to be in the majority,” Thune said in a joint interview with Hinson between stops, during a brief moment of rest in the back of her campaign bus. He acknowledged the environment for Republicans is tough, but “we have to be able to deliver a message that you have a clear choice in front of you about two very different paths.”

The stakes for Thune and his party are enormous in Iowa and in several other traditionally Republican states as voters voice frustration with Trump, his war in Iran and high gasoline and grocery prices. Despite a map favoring Republicans, Democrats are hopeful that they can win the Senate. And like several other Democrats running in red states, Turek, a state legislator, is telling Iowa voters that he would be a bipartisan voice in Washington.

Hinson acknowledges that voters have concerns. But “there is a lot at stake in this election,” she says, “and Iowans are pretty savvy people to understand that this is a six-year term.”

Thune told voters who showed up to the business roundtable to “do everything you can to help her get there.”

“We’ve got to turn out the vote," he said.

Thune makes closing argument to save his majority

Beyond Iowa, Thune has campaigned with Republican Senate candidates in Nebraska, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida and Minnesota. He's headed to Ohio in the coming days to help Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who is facing a tough challenge from Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown.

It wasn’t always a given that Thune, elected by his conference to replace Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell two years ago, would have so much face time with voters and candidates.

Some on the right blame Thune for the failed effort to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voters and mandate voter ID across the country. Thune supports the bill, but it has no chance in the 100-member Senate with the filibuster intact, because Republicans need Democratic support for any piece of legislation to win the necessary 60 votes.

Trump has pressed Thune to change the rules of the Senate and ditch the filibuster, but Thune has staunchly refused, citing the need to stop Democratic legislation if and when Republicans lose power again.

Tensions between the two men peaked this summer, when Trump appeared to question Thune’s leadership. Asked in the Oval Office if the South Dakota Republican was the man for the job, Trump replied that “we’re going to find out, and I’ll let you know.”

Still, Trump has said more than once that he likes Thune personally, and Thune’s office released photos earlier this month of the majority leader and his grandchildren at the White House, on a personal tour led by a smiling Trump.

Thune is also well-liked among his colleagues and enjoys strong support from within his GOP conference — and from possible future members like Hinson.

Thune joked at one of the Iowa events that “I tell all of our candidates, I’ll come out for you or against you, whichever helps you the most.”

Thune navigates Trump, just like GOP candidates

Voters in Iowa weren't asking Thune and Hinson about the SAVE America Act. Instead they were mostly focused on issues like childcare and how the economy and farm input costs are affecting their businesses.

Like Thune, Hinson has been navigating Trump throughout her campaign — appearing with him at a rally in Sioux City the night before but also speaking out against decisions she disagrees with, like increasing beef imports and a deal with Russia to import diesel fuel.

When the president is right about something, “I’m going to be with him, and if he’s wrong about something, I’m going to be in his ear telling him,” Hinson said.

Both are also having to answer for Trump’s war in Iran, as they have joined most Republicans in voting against repeated Democratic attempts to stop it. Rising gas prices since the war’s inception along with Trump's trade war have hit farmers in the state particularly hard.

Despite those votes, Hinson has said on the campaign trail that she wants to see the war come to a “successful and immediate end.”

Thune told attendees at the chamber of commerce lunch that the war is “not going to be a long-term thing.”

“There’s going to be a solution there, an answer there soon,” he said, and fuel prices will eventually come down.

It’s unclear whether enough voters will trust them. Outside one of Hinson’s events, two Turek supporters staged a small protest.

Hinson is “doing Trump’s bidding,” said Valerie Conaway Cote, a Democrat from Sioux City.

Cote said she used to like Thune and thought he was “a respectable man that saw both sides and made reasonable decisions."

“But,” she said, "he is firmly in Trump’s corner, and he seems to bend the knee.”

GOP conference backs Thune as he plans robust agenda

In the nation's capital, Senate Republicans will gather a week after the Nov. 3 election to decide whether to reelect Thune as leader. It’s a secret ballot, and no one has stepped up to challenge him.

“The guy’s an extraordinarily nice human being,” said Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio earlier this month. “Do I think he’s got broad support? Yes.”

Moreno said he doesn’t think Thune will be blamed if they suffer losses in the midterms.

“At the end of the day, if there’s any Republican losses, it’s going to be about gas prices,” Moreno said.

If Republicans do hold on to the Senate, Thune said part of next year’s agenda would be trying to put guardrails around artificial intelligence along with renewed attempts at housing and tax reform. He said they would also try again on permitting legislation and a broad bill to regulate college sports, if those don’t get done this year.

If Democrats win, “you’re going to have two years of paralysis,” Thune said, with Trump in the White House. “And I don’t think that’s good for anybody.”

With concerns about fraud and fears of a budget deficit looming over Minnesota's elections, control of the state auditor's office could influence anti-fraud and budget efforts at the local level, no matter who sits in the governor's office.

Here’s a quick look at the race.

1) What does the state auditor do?

The Office of the State Auditor oversees more than $56 billion in local government finances. This includes funding for cities, counties, school districts and other local jurisdictions.

The office audits local government financial data to investigate allegations of theft, embezzlement or unlawful use of public funds. It does not have the authority to review financial affairs of state offices or agencies, which is the responsibility of the legislative auditor.

Former Minnesota Govs. Arne Carlson and Mark Dayton both served as state auditor before becoming the state’s top elected official.

2) Who is running?

DFL State Auditor Julie Blaha is stepping down after two terms. There's a three-way race to succeed her: Forward Independence candidate Jay Reeves, former GOP state Sen. Scott Jensen and DFLer and former Duluth City Council member Zack Filipovich.

Reeves is an Army veteran who worked as a data analyst in military and civilian health services. He has a degree in health informatics, data analytics and data visualization from the University of Minnesota.

Jensen, a family doctor, ran for governor in 2022 against Tim Walz, losing by 7 percentage points. He won the GOP's nomination for state auditor in August, beating out Braham Mayor Nate George and Will Finn, who ran for the office in 2022 under the Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party.

Filipovich ran in an uncontested DFL primary. He's been touting his credentials as the only accountant in the race.

3) What are they saying?

All three candidates are focused on protections against fraud and waste, but they differ in their approaches.

Reeves wants the office to be more proactive in identifying vulnerabilities that could lead to fraud. He says the office should use technology to detect fraud quickly.

"I did it for the military for 17 years," Reeves said at a debate hosted by WCCO. "I brought in data analytics programs on a worldwide basis."

Jensen is relying on his government and business experience to show that he has the chops to lead an office that oversees finances in 4,300 units of local government. He says his experience will help him build a team to fight fraud, waste and abuse while spotlighting the impact of state mandates on local government finances.

"This is not about hiring a single individual who is going to have the secret sauce to making it go away," Jensen said in a debate hosted by KSTP. "This is about leadership, building a team and calling out people when they don't do their job."

Filipovich is focused on providing local governments with financial resources to address a projected shortage of accountants in the state. He wants to visit all 87 Minnesota counties to connect with local leaders and find out how the office can provide local governments with resources and training.

"These are the dollars that pay for schools and police and public safety and public parks," Filipovich said in the same debate. "We need to get that right."

Filipovich and Reeves also support more transparency in the auditor's office. Reeves wants to update the office's website so data is easily accessible to all. Filipovich wants to have more open houses and forums with people across the state.

Republicans haven't won a statewide election in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty was reelected governor in 2006. Four years ago, Republican Ryan Wilson came within half a percentage point, 8,435 votes, of beating Blaha.

In a recent KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, Filipovich led Jensen by 1 percentage point, with 14 percent of voters still undecided, marking a change from Jensen's 7-point lead in a poll from September.

About 5 percent of those surveyed said they planned on voting for Reeves in the election.

4) Where can I learn more?

MPR News has a voter guide, where you can read candidates' responses to our questionnaire and find links to their campaign websites.

Minnesota PBS held a debate between the three candidates in August after the primary. Filipovich and Jensen debated on KSTP in October.

MPR News reporter Peter Cox contributed reporting to this story.

Outsized figures, especially those mired in controversy or unpopular, can have an outsized role late in a campaign.

In Minnesota, several races are being colored by people not on the ballot. Republicans are trying to move out of President Donald Trump’s shadow, Democrats are distancing themselves from Gov. Tim Walz, and middle-of-the-road Democrats are recoiling as further left candidates bring in divisive figures like internet streamer Hasan Piker.

Piker’s scheduled appearance Monday night in Minneapolis has given Republicans an opening to question whether Democrats are willing to call out their left flank and split Democrats about whether it’s appropriate to have him.

The prospect of a presidential visit, which Trump has hinted at, equally has some Republicans trying to escape his low ratings.

Trump towers over GOP

Ads attacking Republicans, including governor candidate Lisa Demuth and Senate candidate Michele Tafoya, are rife with mentions of Trump.

Many are trying to keep the president at arms length. For Tafoya, a recent presidential endorsement isn't something she's touted. When asked about it, she's answered: "I heard about that.”

It's a long way from when candidates were loudly touting Trump's endorsement. In her ads, Tafoya aimed to show herself as independent of the president.

“I’m a pro-choice Republican,” she says in one ad. “I’m not afraid to stand up to my party. When Trump is right, I’ll work with him, when he’s wrong I’ll stand up for Minnesota.”

Last week, Tafoya was asked by FOX News whether she'd welcome Trump coming to Minnesota.

"I don't know anything about his schedule. I'm certainly not in charge of his schedule,” Tafoya said. “What I am looking for is to bring people together in this campaign, whether they voted for Trump, whether they voted for Kamala Harris or whether they didn't vote at all because they felt disenfranchised. That is the ultimate endorsement for me."

Pressed about if it would help or hurt her race to have Trump in town, Tafoya didn’t give a firm answer.

"Look, again, I think for some people it might, and for some people it might not,” Tafoya said.

Republican governor nominee Demuth has said she'll address that if and when an event is scheduled.

Trump further added to his endorsement of Tafoya in a post Monday afternoon on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Let's all get behind Michele Tafoya in Minnesota. She's running a great race,” he wrote.

Trump also pre-questioned the outcome of the race in his endorsement.

“Don't allow them to play with the Votes after the race is over. The Federal Government will be watching closely. The only way she can lose is if they cheat by playing games with the Ballots as they come in,” Trump wrote.

Walz puts DFLers on defensive

Similarly for Democrats, Walz has been kept at a distance or even been a target for candidates from his party.

He hasn’t been on the campaign trail in his signature red buffalo plaid shirt this fall. Instead, he's been doing political fundraising events, but mostly out of state.

Unlike the dilemma Republicans face with Trump, whose term runs through 2028, Walz's term ends in early January.

Democrats have worked to separate themselves from Walz — especially when it comes to fraud. Ads attacking DFL governor nominee Amy Klobuchar and DFL U.S. Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan are trying to do the exact opposite. Flanagan has the harder task as second-in-command to Walz for two terms.

During a candidate forum in Brainerd, Klobuchar tried to make the distinction between herself and Walz obvious.

"As for Tim Walz, I have been very clear. I would have caught that fraud. I would have done something about it,” she said. “We have very different backgrounds. Secondly, when they had that surplus, I would have used it to pay for things that aren't as sexy, like infrastructure, get this technology done, and do things like that. I would have clearly not pardoned a sex offender."

Flanagan has been asked a lot about Walz and her role in the administration when it came to issues of fraud. She answers that she had no oversight role in any of the fraud cases.

She told WCCO Radio’s Jason DeRusha that she won't be pairing up with Walz for the final push.

"He hasn't been on the campaign trail with me. He's not going to be on the campaign trail with me. This is about the Peggy Flanagan for U.S. Senate campaign,” she said.

Divisive streamer’s visit

It’s not just the top statewide races facing these kinds of dilemmas.

Monday night’s Piker visit is creating tensions. The leftist online video streamer is due to appear with U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar at an event hosted by DFL state Sen. Omar Fateh.

Piker is popular with the far left flank of Democrats. But he's also an extremely divisive figure.

That's due to controversial statements he's made about Israel, about the Sept. 11 terror attacks and his condemnations of U.S. politicians from both parties.

Republicans have broadly criticized it, and tried to link his appearance to all Democratic candidates in the state more broadly.

But several prominent Democrats, including Klobuchar, have condemned Piker's rhetoric. Some officials have called for the event to be cancelled.

A spokesperson for Omar defended it, saying the congresswoman is “laser focused on turning out the vote.”

“Early voting among people under 40 is down, and we need to do everything to get young people to the polls,” a statement from the Omar team said.

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig posted on X: “As Democrats, we constantly criticize the far-right for their incendiary and discriminatory politics, but we need to hold ourselves to the same standard. Hasan Piker’s rhetoric is polarizing and dangerous, and embracing him as a party is a mistake.”

The event sold out quickly.

Several state candidates met with Native and non-Native community members at the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth on Tuesday and discussed their stances on housing.

White Earth Nation citizen Babette Sandman, 72, attended the evening forum. She remembered a time when she may not have voted.

“Voting has been a long journey for me. I'm from the '60s and '70s. You know, a lot of protesting and a lot of having a hard time to believe in our vote that it made any kind of difference,” Sandman said.

It wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s that the federal government addressed Native voting rights. Before then, many states restricted tribal communities or denied them the right to vote.

With the upcoming election, she says Native voters are needed more than ever, as concerns grow over affordable housing, assistance programs and daily living costs.

Sandman currently works with Street Wise, an organization that gathers voices from people who are homeless or have experienced homelessness to work on legislation that addresses housing needs.

“We always were a country that took care of the people, and it's really hard with expensive expenses for people to make it. You know, try and work two jobs and raise kids is impossible,” she said.

Mary Garness, 49, is from the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Wisconsin and currently lives in Duluth. Garness says she wants to make an informed decision when she votes.

“I want to help the people that I care about, and so how I vote is really going to be a reflection of what I see as the community needs,” said Garness.

Garness, who works for St. Louis County, is most concerned about housing and funding for mental health services, which she says go hand in hand.

“I see so many people struggling. Whether it's people that come into my office that struggle to pay their bills or afford the services that we have,” she said.

When looking at candidates, she wants to vote for someone who can listen to people's lived experiences.

“I think it's really impactful in making informed decisions regarding our tax dollars. You know, creating bills that take us in the right direction and also standing up for things they believe are right,” she said, stating that she would wait until election day to cast her ballot.

Govinda Budrow, 46, is a descendant of White Earth Nation. She works as a faculty member at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, located in Cloquet. She is most concerned with affordable housing, education and environmental sustainability.

She says she is considering early voting ahead of Election Day.

“It's about our ability to show up and thrive as nations, as communities, as individuals, and connecting with one another,” Budrow said. “If we support the health and the wellness and the education of the community, and if we have thriving communities, we're all going to be doing better.”

In south Minneapolis, Make Voting A Tradition is a program of the Native American Community Development Institute. It aims to increase Native voter turnout and civic engagement.

Program manager Jolene Jones, 64, is a descendant of White Earth Nation and the Lac Courte Oreille Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. She says the group works through nonpartisan and peer efforts.

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“We specifically tell them how that office directly affects them, and I think people, every day, people don't even realize how some of these offices affect them, their families, their environment, everything,” said Jones.

She says voter turnout and civic engagement have increased in the last six years.

“Without our vote, some elections can be lost. You know, we need to not only vote, but we need to vote strong,” she said.

In 2020, Native voters in Arizona and Wisconsin closed the margin in Joe Biden's presidential win, according to Colorado-based High Country News.

Babette Sandman wants to see her fellow community members at the polls.

“Our vote matters, especially now, for our future generations. What we do today, especially now, what we do now is so important for moving forward into the next generations.”

For Sandman and other Native attendees at Duluth's forum, a candidate who is genuine and understands the needs of their community will earn their vote on election day.

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities. 

Two hundred and one separate races will determine two very big things: control of the Minnesota House and the Minnesota Senate.

Prior elections produced the tightest margins at the Capitol in recent memory. For a time, both chambers were tied between the parties. Coming into this election, a single seat favored Democrats in the Senate and the House was all knotted up.

With a new governor coming in, the stakes are pretty high. With the majorities comes the power to set the agenda on spending, taxes and so many other policies.

MPR News politics editor Brian Bakst discusses the campaign with the caucus leaders of both parties trying to push the outcome in their direction.

The debates are in the rearview mirror in races for governor and U.S. Senate. We’ll check in with our politics reporters on what the end game looks like.

Guests:

• Sen. Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, is the DFL Senate majority leader.

• Sen. Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks, is the Republican Senate minority leader.

• Rep. Harry Niska, of Ramsey, is the Republican caucus leader for the Minnesota House.

• Rep. Zack Stephenson, of Coon Rapids, is the DFL caucus leader for the Minnesota House.

• Dana Ferguson is a political correspondent for MPR News.

• Peter Cox is a senior politics reporter for MPR News.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation or subscribe to the Politics Friday podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.

The two women vying to be Minnesota’s next governor said they won’t try to roll back Minnesota’s law guaranteeing the right to abortion access after the issue caused sparks in their only televised debate.

But they still come at it from far different vantage points.

The issue that was a dominant campaign theme in the last governor’s race in 2022 — in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade — hasn’t been a key focus this cycle. That’s because affordability, fraud, healthcare access and crime top Minnesota voters’ priority lists.

But that hasn’t stopped organizations focused on maintaining legal abortion access, as well as those aiming to restrict it, from spending in the race and trying to center the issue.

Onstage in Rochester on Wednesday, Democrat Amy Klobuchar took her Republican Lisa Demuth to task for previously sponsoring legislation that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, often around six weeks after conception.

The 2021 proposal would have penalized medical providers that perform abortions after that point, unless it was done to save the life or prevent a serious health risk of the mother. Providers could face up to a year in prison, a $3,000 fine or both. The measure stalled in the DFL-led House.

“I don't think we want our first woman governor to be someone that has such an extreme view that would ban women's health care in the case of reproductive health care, with no exceptions for rape or incest, and send doctors to jail,” Klobuchar said. “It is in writing in her plan that is extreme, and we have enough extreme things in our politics right now. You may have different views on abortion, but not many people think we should send doctors to jail.”

Demuth emphasized that her bill stalled. She has cast the issue as a distraction and called abortion access in Minnesota “settled law.” She cited a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that determined the state Constitution affords women the right to choose between terminating a pregnancy or carrying it to term.

“Abortion is settled here in the state of Minnesota, and I think Senator Klobuchar is looking for things that she can try to drive a wedge in,” Demuth said, reiterating that her bill “never went any place at all.”

Is Minnesota abortion law settled?

Earlier this year, Demuth touted her anti-abortion proposals as she worked to win over Republican voters ahead of the GOP state party convention. She landed the endorsement from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. The group spent $60,000 in the primary to help put her over the top and has money built up for the stretch run.

Abortion rights advocacy group Planned Parenthood’s various political funds have donated directly to Klobuchar’s campaign. Through early September, the group spent about $1,500 on campaign literature promoting Klobuchar independent of her campaign.

While the 1995 case offered state precedent, lawmakers from both parties have tried in recent years to rewrite Minnesota law related to abortion access. Following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson that overturned Roe, it became a central campaign issue for Democrats in Minnesota.

Voter frustration over that ruling helped give Minnesota Democrats control of all three levers of power there — the governor’s office, Senate and House.

For the first time, the state had a majority of lawmakers who support ensuring abortion access.

In 2023, Democratic majorities quickly used that power to pass legislation guaranteeing the right to reproductive care, including abortions. The law also extends legal protections to providers who practice here and patients who travel for care. Demuth, along with all Republicans and some House Democrats, voted against the law.

Jill Hasday, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, with background in constitutional and family law, said that while the 1995 state high court ruling offers direction to judges weighing abortion cases, it could change.

“As Dobbs illustrates, a court can adopt an opinion interpreting the constitution, and then a future court might change its mind,” Hasday said. “It's certainly possible that a future bench on the Minnesota Supreme Court could change its mind, just like Roe (v. Wade) was reversed at the federal level.”

Because DFLers have held the governor’s office for four consecutive terms, the state Supreme Court is now made up entirely of appointees of Democrats. While that doesn’t guarantee any outcome, it makes a dramatic change on abortion case decisions less likely.

The next governor isn’t assured any appointments in a first term because none of the current justices will reach the retirement age of 70 in the next four years. Justices often leave for other reasons on their own timetable, however.

Future legislators could seek to alter or repeal existing state laws around abortion. Federal courts have also been weighing abortion law cases that can have a bearing on the procedure.

DFL lawmakers have tried in recent legislative sessions to bring a proposed constitutional amendment to the ballot that would guarantee access to reproductive care, including abortion, as part of an equal rights amendment. They’ve so far come up short. If the amendment was adopted, it could cement the right to abortion access in a way courts or legislators couldn’t touch, unless voters opted to pull the language from the constitution.

No quick changes expected

Asked whether she wanted to change that 2023 law, Klobuchar told reporters it should be left intact.

“With everything going on around the country, I don’t think we should go back,” Klobuchar said.

When asked whether she’d try to alter the law, Demuth didn’t answer the question directly. She said abortion policy wouldn’t be a top concern.

“I think that we have enough things in our state that really rise to the level of needing help right away. We've got to look at those things first,” Demuth said. “We are going to be in a deficit eventually, if we keep going this way, there's overspending, and then of course the fraud. I think those are going to rise to the top of mind for all people.”

Hundreds of candidates are competing to win seats on Minnesota school boards this November as outside political and labor groups are continuing to make public endorsements in what have traditionally been nonpartisan races.

The majority of Minnesota’s more than 300 public school districts will have school board seats on ballots this November. Since the pandemic, school board races — which are officially nonpartisan — have become increasingly competitive, partisan and expensive.

Last year, campaign donations soared into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in some races. Candidates clashed over culture war issues and partisan and labor groups released competing lists of endorsements for their preferred candidates.

This year, watchers say the open board seats are less contested and less expensive than in years past, but partisan and labor groups are still releasing dueling lists of endorsements, hoping to guide voters to throw their support behind their preferred candidates.

The conservative Minnesota Parents Alliance has endorsed 75 candidates in 52 Minnesota districts, and Education Minnesota has endorsed 89 candidates in 27 districts.

Just 14 districts have at least one endorsement from both groups and only three districts have full slates of candidates from both groups competing against each other. The number of endorsements is down compared to recent years.

In the recent past when given a choice, voters have tended to pick union-endorsed candidates as opposed to those backed by the conservative Minnesota Parents Alliance. Still, candidates backed by the group have won swathes of seats statewide, including majorities in several districts and half the board seats in Minnesota’s largest district, Anoka-Hennepin.

Both the progressive School Board Integrity Project and the conservative Minnesota Parents Alliance have invested in training candidates to run for school board seats.

The Minnesota Parents Alliance has not responded to interview requests from MPR News, but its website says it supports school board candidates who “prioritize academic achievement, transparency and accountability.”

The group’s Facebook page has touted the actions of past endorsed candidates who have gained school board seats. In Prior Lake, it praised its endorsed board members for “turning the page on the past several years of prioritizing ideological agendas over student achievement” after board leaders there voted to rescind an equity and inclusion resolution. In interviews, the group’s founder has decried board members and board candidates for advocating for racial justice.

This year in Prior Lake, four candidates endorsed by Minnesota Parents Alliance are running against four Education Minnesota-endorsed candidates.

“A lot of the parents’ rights movement conversations are still happening and … we are seeing a lot of attacks on LGBTQ students and their rights,” said Kyrstin Schuette, founder and executive director of the progressive School Board Integrity Project.

Prior Lake is one of several school districts where Schuette said she’s paying close attention to election outcomes.

Her organization has compiled but not yet publicly released the list of candidates who have been vetted by her organization and taken a pledge promising to advocate for “students of all backgrounds,” lead with integrity and allow space for “civil dialogue.”

“This year with the continued attacks that we’re seeing on public education from the federal government … it’s incredibly important that people stand up because the school board level really is the last line of defense when it comes to protecting strong, inclusive public schools,” Schuette said.

She said the candidates she’s working with have raised concerns about banning books and censorship in schools, as well as trying to pass referendums to ensure schools are sufficiently funded.

The state teachers’ union is also attempting to draw attention to issues it believes are important this year.

“Public education has a lot of challenges on the horizon,” Education Minnesota President Monica Byron said.

“We need to make sure that Minnesota schools have good school boards to manage those issues, some of which are spiraling … health care costs, cuts coming from state and federal budgets … culture war conspiracies and improving literacy and other forms of student achievement,” Byron added. “We want to make sure that our school board members understand the complexities of being an educator these days and remember that we are all in it together for our students and our communities.”

The parents of one of the two children killed in the 2025 mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis publicly announced their support for Amy Klobuchar for governor on Thursday.

“We don't expect our elected officials to have every answer, but we do expect them to go looking for one and to stay in the conversation with us when it gets difficult. And that's exactly what Amy does,” said Jackie Flavin, standing next to her husband Mike Moyski.

The Minneapolis couple lost their 10-year-old Harper Moyski in the shooting and said Klobuchar has shown her support for Annunciation families from the start.

The election carries extra significance, falling on Harper’s birthday.

They shared their endorsement after the senator, who is the Democratic nominee for governor, sparred with Republican nominee Lisa Demuth over gun violence prevention efforts during a televised debate on Wednesday night.

At the debate in Rochester, Klobuchar criticized Demuth for backtracking on a reported promise she made to the Moyski family — a commitment the Republican House speaker denies having made.

Last fall, Moyski and Flavin had invited lawmakers, including Demuth, to sit in their living room following the death of their child, to discuss keeping kids safe. The couple has said they asked Demuth during that meeting if she would allow a bill related to AR-15 rifles and high-capacity magazines to go to a vote. Her answer was yes, according to Moyski.

Multiple gun-related bills failed to get through the state House committee process during the legislative session this year, but the state Senate passed a comprehensive gun violence prevention package. The package then went to the state House for a vote, but the House, led by Demuth, never put it up for a vote.

While speaking about public safety during the debate hosted by Fox 9 and Gray Media, Klobuchar brought up that living room meeting.

“She told them she would give a vote, give a vote for the gun safety package. Allow for a vote no matter how she voted on it, and she did not. She lied to them in their own living room,” Klobuchar said.

“When I had the honor of meeting with the families that were highly impacted by the tragedy at Annunciation, I gave them my word. I would not lie to them but I said bills will be introduced, they will go through the process and they will be voted on. That happened eight times. I held true to my word to hear the bills,” Demuth replied during the debate.

On Thursday, Flavin called Demuth’s defense “bullshit.”

“The reality is she blocked it from happening. So I think she lied to us in our living room. Intentionally? I don't know but then continued to lie as we called it out,” Moyski said.

At a press conference with the couple, Klobuchar said that as governor she would sign a similar package into law.

Klobuchar, Moyski and Flavin also criticized Demuth for “bragging” about blocking the comprehensive gun measure earlier this year. Demuth had taken credit for preventing the bill from advancing as she sought the Minnesota Republican Party's endorsement last spring.

"I led the effort to stop the Democrats from taking our guns,” Demuth said in her speech to the Republican convention in May, after the legislative session ended with no House vote on the gun package.

Demuth's campaign issued a statement after the endorsement came down and the allegations were lodged. It called the Annunciation shooting "a horrendous tragedy" and said there were seven votes during the session. Most of them were procedural in nature as the bill became stuck.

The Demuth statement reads, in part: "Speaker Demuth supported elements of the Annunciation parents' agenda, including mobile crisis grants and required anonymous threat reporting systems in all schools. Speaker Demuth has supported security funding for all kids in all schools, including in private schools, which Democrats over and over again have blocked."

Moyski and Flavin have canvassed this fall for a few Democratic candidates in downticket races that have committed to passing legislation for student safety, though Moyski said they would support a candidate of any party committed to supporting changes.

The parents are also appearing in a new campaign ad that also calls out Demuth over the way the gun legislation was handled.

Election Day on Nov. 3 would have been Harper’s 12th birthday.

“We're hoping she gives us a nice gift from above on this one,” Moyski said.

Months after training thousands of Minnesota residents to observe ICE operations, a local group has shifted to training voters in what they call democracy defense. Trainers aim is to prepare voters to respond if federal officials interfere with people’s ability to cast their ballots next month.

On a recent Sunday, about two dozen people filtered into a mostly windowless room at a library in the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities to get trained on election protection. Jessi Meliza, one of the volunteer trainers for the day, got active this winter during the ICE surge into Minnesota with the Unidos project Monarca, which trained tens of thousands of Minnesotans about their rights to observe and document the actions of federal agents.

“Constitutional observer [training] is very straightforward. There's a triggering action. You know what to do. You do it, and then you go home,” Meliza said. “With election defense, it's much more nebulous, much more conceptual. So we're really focusing on what mechanisms allow things like fascism to take hold, and then what does that look like to combat it in a meaningful way?”

The trainers walk participants through basic steps they can take: voting early, driving neighbors to the polls, or identifying misinformation. They ground the training in Constitutional language, but Meliza said they also emphasize how important it is to build trust and relationships with your neighbors.

“Nobody really knows the right way to do it, but [we want to] dispel some of the hopelessness, show people they do have power, and then give some actionable things they can do toward feeling better in general,” Meliza said.

Participants also consider how they’d react in what may seem like far-fetched scenarios, like the collapse of communication networks. How would they stay informed and in contact with allies?

“What the other side is counting on is that we're not going to react in an organized manner, that we're just going to descend into chaos, and everyone's going to bump into walls and be screaming, ‘Everything is on fire!’” Meliza said. “That's really what we're trying to combat.”

Residents already wary of federal intervention after Metro Surge

Minnesota residents have been on edge following the federal government’s surge into Minnesota this winter, which included two fatal shootings of civilians by federal agents. The Trump administration has also pressured election officials across the country by seeking access to voter rolls, including in Minnesota, although federal judges have so far batted down those efforts.

According to reporting from NPR, the Department of Justice plans to monitor elections in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties. State officials say the federal government also sent monitors during primary elections in August, but the monitors did not interfere with the process.

The group’s election protection trainings have already been going on for months and will continue until the election. Unidos Minnesota Executive Director Emilia Gonzalez Avalos said Monarca was launched in 2025 to help provide infrastructure for people to organize themselves.

“Monarca is like a vertebrate. It expands when it needs to expand, and it contracts when it needs to contract,” Avalos said. “These are basic organizing lessons that sometimes we forget: You support people making a choice, sometimes you get out of the way.”

The groups shifted their focus to elections partly to ensure people are prepared if the ICE observer trainings during the surge gave Minnesotans the tools to help protect their immigrant neighbors, Avalos said. The next stage is for people to realize that they also have a personal stake in this democracy and that elections need to be protected to maintain anyone’s rights. She said it’s also a way to be sure that the grassroots muscles Minnesotans exercised during the surge don’t atrophy.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon wants to reassure voters that the state has strong laws governing elections, including limits on how federal law enforcement can interact with voters. Law enforcement can’t preemptively be placed at the polls, but can be summoned to a precinct if there’s a disruption. But, generally, no one who isn’t an election volunteer, voter or worker in the building is allowed within 100 feet of the entrance.

“I'm confident not only that we have really good and precise laws in place, but that our partners at local units of government will enforce those laws,” Simon said.

Simon urges anyone who sees anything inappropriate at their voting place to talk to the head precinct judge and contact his office. If US Department of Justice observers do visit precincts, as they did during the primaries, state officials would investigate to ensure they are following the rules.

As the election approaches, Simon said voters should be wary of disinformation and seek out credible sources. But if something unexpected does happen, he said Minnesota and other states will be ready at the institutional level. They’ve been planning with election officials and attorneys general from across the country.

“Sadly, this year one of the hazards potentially is that the federal government will do something that will interfere directly or indirectly with the election,” Simon said. “It may not happen. I hope it doesn't happen. But we have to drill and war game those things, and we have been doing that now for months.”

Moriah O’Malley, now a leader with the group, said she considered herself just a bit of an activist before the surge. She’d call her congresspeople or attend a protest. But these sorts of trainings have opened her up to the possibility that people organizing their own neighborhoods and communities can be a transformative force in a democracy.

“I recognize that the skills and experience that I have is valuable to contribute,” O’Malley said. “When we all combine those, we can create a much better solution than the world that we have been given so far, and we can really craft the future that we deserve.”

The Department of Justice this week began notifying the counties it wants to monitor on Election Day, NPR has learned.

Counties in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington have received notifications from the Justice Department so far, but the list seems to be growing in real time.

The department has long deployed monitors to ensure compliance with voting laws, but the Trump administration's unprecedented steps to try to wrestle control over elections from local and state governments have led to new concerns about DOJ monitoring this year. And already this week, at least one county official is raising questions about why his locality is on the DOJ's list.

Last month, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said the department planned to send 1,000 observers nationwide, in what she termed "the largest monitoring effort" in DOJ history.

And even as counties are being notified, it's unclear which jurisdictions or how many the department plans to monitor this November. A DOJ spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, told NPR those details will be shared "closer to the election."

The Justice Department routinely observes elections. The department under President Biden monitored 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day in the last midterm year, 2022.

But to many local officials and experts, this year is different.

President Trump continues to falsely maintain that he won the 2020 election and that election fraud is more widespread than it has ever been proven to be. Experts worry federal law enforcement could potentially use those false claims — or others generated this year — as pretext to try to seize ballots during the counting period, or interfere in the process in some other way.

Most states reported no incidents with Justice Department monitors during primary elections earlier this year, but in Wyoming, the state's Republican governor expressed concern about "aggressive" and "irregular" behavior by monitors for the state's August primary. And the Republican county clerk of Laramie County told NBC News that the conduct of the monitors "showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections."

The Department of Justice disputes that characterization.

"We disagree with the public framing that the two monitors we sent were 'aggressive' or did anything improper," Pels said, adding that Dhillon had a meeting with the Wyoming officials after the fact.

In previous election cycles, state officials in the states where monitors were assigned were notified at the same time as the counties. This year, that did not happen initially, according to officials in three states who spoke to NPR anonymously because they weren't authorized to speak to the press. So states have been scrambling since the notifications began going out Tuesday to figure out where the DOJ plans to be.

After NPR asked the DOJ why states had not been notified, multiple state officials told NPR they then received notification from the department.

One of the counties that received a notification is Adams County, Colo.

The clerk there, Democrat Josh Zygielbaum, told NPR he wasn't shocked the DOJ selected his county to observe, as Adams County includes part of the state's 8th Congressional District, a toss-up district that could determine party control of the House of Representatives next year.

Zygielbaum was surprised however that the DOJ reached out only to him, and not the Republican clerk in neighboring Weld County, which also houses a sizable portion of that same congressional district.

"My initial thought is that it's politically motivated, and that this is potentially an intimidation technique," Zygielbaum said. "Although I like to assume the best in people, the administration really has shown its disdain for elections, particularly in states and counties where mail ballots exist."

Pels, of the DOJ, said the department prioritizes places with competitive elections, and would monitor Adams County because it is covered by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires voters be given access to election materials in the language they speak. Weld County is not covered under that provision.

That explanation didn't fully comfort Zygielbaum.

"The fact that we're covered by Section 203 means we have a higher portion of Spanish-speaking voters who have a right to vote," Zygielbaum said. "It still doesn't put me at ease that it's not a targeted visit."

NPR reported in September that Trump administration officials assigned to noncitizen voting issues last year circulated a list of counties covered by Section 203, along with a DOJ criminal checklist outlining requirements for prosecution of voter-related charges.

Colorado state officials say they are considering how to respond to the DOJ's request, considering Colorado election rules say observers need to have permission from the secretary of state's office, unless they are ordered to observe by a court.

"We are considering these requests in collaboration with the Attorney General's Office," said Jack Todd, a spokesperson for the Colorado secretary of state's office.

Zygielbaum says his election processes won't change either way. He has, however, already requested a staffer from the state come to Adams County on Election Day just to keep an eye on the federal monitors if they do come.

"I have lots of questions about why they're there and what their ultimate intent is," he said.

NPR has confirmed the DOJ has also sent monitor notifications to seven counties in Texas, King County, Wash., Miami-Dade County, Fla., and Hennepin and Ramsey counties in Minnesota.

The DOJ requested to send monitors to the same Minnesota counties during the state's primary in August, but monitors were denied close access to polling locations. A spokesperson for the Minnesota secretary of state's office said it was too soon to know whether a different decision would be made for this fall's general election.

In 2024, Texas similarly blocked the Biden-era DOJ from election monitoring. Ken Paxton, the state attorney general and current Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, went to court then to block monitors from getting inside polling and counting locations.

"The DOJ knows it has no authority to monitor Texas elections and backed down when Texas stood up for the rule of law," Paxton said in a statement on Nov. 5, 2024.

Copyright 2026, NPR

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar will move out of her Washington, D.C., home that federal agents searched last week, she said Wednesday, noting that attention brought on by the raid has made her feel unsafe there.

Federal authorities are investigating potential fraud in her family's immigration paperwork and have issued grand jury subpoenas to some of her relatives, a person briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Omar, who was born in Somalia and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, said Wednesday in her first interview since the search that she is “confident in the fact that I didn’t do anything wrong.”

The progressive Minnesota Democrat has been a frequent critic and target of President Donald Trump, who has on multiple occasions pushed for the prosecution of his perceived political enemies.

In the interview with MS NOW, Omar said she was rattled by the search weeks out from the Nov. 3 midterms, which will decide control of the House and Senate. She is running for reelection in a deep blue district centered in Minneapolis and is expected to retain her seat.

Omar recalled waking around 6 a.m. to Homeland Security investigators banging on her door with a warrant. They searched for four or five hours and seized 17 items, including phones, notebooks, a Somali language children’s book and a vintage camera that her husband had received as a gift, she said.

The Justice Department has shared few details about the case other than saying it was a criminal investigation.

Omar came with her family to the U.S. at age 12, after they obtained asylum. She became a U.S. citizen five years later, in 2000.

“It would be a huge undertaking to, I suppose, indict a 12-year-old for so cleverly conspiring to defraud immigration services to come to the United States. I'm sure there are a lot of smart 12-year-olds, but that seems like a leap,” she said in the interview.

The search drew sharp condemnation from congressional Democrats, who also questioned the timing. The Justice Department has historically avoided overt investigative actions involving candidates in the immediate run-up to an election.

Omar said the agents were “intrusive but polite,” logging the items they took and putting back everything else in its place.

Seventeen days before the November election, state Sen. Rob Kupec roused a room full of volunteers before they set out to knock on Moorhead voters’ doors. He was flanked by five fellow DFL senators lending their support and staff to the homestretch of his reelection appeal.

Four represent the Twin Cities metro and one represents Mankato.

All hail from hundreds of miles away, because Kupec is the only senate Democrat in western Minnesota.

“I am one of those unicorn Democrats that's running in a district that Trump won,” Kupec said.

Republican challenger Austin Peterson wants to change that. The rural real estate developer is hoping his pro-business agenda will be enough to energize rural voters in the Red River Valley while courting enough voters in the blue city of Moorhead.

“There's a lot of things they’re not going to agree with me on, but what they want is they want to be able to keep their business in Minnesota,” he said. “They want their family to grow up in Minnesota, and they just want some relief.”

The race in Senate District 4 has attracted a lot of attention and money because the DFL has a fragile, single-seat majority in the state Senate. Flipping any district could mean taking control.

“You get a net gain of one, and everything changes in that chamber,” said David Sturrock, a political science professor at Southwest Minnesota State and former Republican Party official. “The stakes are very high, and that makes a district like number four a prime target.”

In the most recent campaign finance reports filed late last month, more than $1 million has been spent by outside groups on this race. Peterson’s supporters are outspending Kupec’s by a ratio of nearly 10 to one.

"The outside spending is the thing I worry the most about, that it has just been so lopsided and one-sided,” Kupec said.

The vast majority of that money is being spent on negative ads attacking Kupec, which have reached more than a million views on YouTube in the past two months.

While he hasn’t had much money behind him so far, Kupec has received support from big names. Just this week, he announced endorsements from both the Minnesota Farmer’s Union and Minnesota Farm Bureau, notable because the latter usually endorses conservative candidates.

And last month, DFL U.S. Sen. Tina Smith visited a Moorhead farm to support Kupec’s campaign and talk about issues affecting rural voters, which Kupec has focused on during his tenure in the Legislature.

He serves as vice chair of the Agriculture, Veterans, Broadband, and Rural Development committee, where he helped establish more farmer safety nets and pushed to expand farmers’ right to repair their equipment.

But it might take more than that to win red, rural Minnesota, Sturrock said.

“It’s a cultural dimension as much as hard policy. You're a Democrat running in greater Minnesota. That's a harder sell than it used to be,” he said. “You have to give rural and small town voters reasons to be comfortable with you.”

And on that front, Peterson may present the former weatherman with some gusty headwinds.

The rural challenger

Peterson lives in Hawley, a town of just over 2,000 people in Clay County. A good chunk of his online presence is focused on his rural way of life. He’s a family man, a hunter, a fisherman and a churchgoer.

Those traits are exactly what Peterson needs to highlight if he wants to win, Sturrock said, since rural Minnesotans need to trust him before they vote for him.

"[If] I've got things in common with you, I can be comfortable that I'm sending you off to St. Paul,” he said. “You'll have lots of decisions, and I can trust you to make those decisions the way I would like them to be made.”

Peterson said his passion for business has manifested in real estate.

“I'm addicted to business. I love seeing people become successful because of risks they took,” he said. “We need leaders in St. Paul that understand that there's so many challenges that are associated with getting a business off the ground, running, maintaining the business.”

Peterson has been endorsed by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, and its affiliated “Pro Jobs Majority" committee is one of the biggest spenders in the race.

Peterson’s business background guides his politics. One of the tenets of his campaign is affordability, and most of his solutions involve cutting regulations to make things like childcare and housing cheaper.

But Kupec said most of those regulations are there to keep children and homes safe.

The two candidates have also found areas of agreement. While Peterson is generally in favor of cutting state spending, bulking up rural emergency medical services is a personal priority for him.

Five years ago, his 9-month-old daughter had a seizure and stopped breathing.

“We called 911 and EMS told me that they did not know when they could get an ambulance to our house,” he said. “I realized at that moment that I was going to not only have to get my daughter breathing again, but get my daughter to the hospital.”

He did, and she’s OK. He still gets choked up when he talks about it.

“It was flat-out the worst day of my life,” Peterson said.

Rural EMS funding has been an issue in Minnesota for years. Emergency aid bills have passed with bipartisan support and have helped bridge some funding gaps, but both candidates agree lawmakers need to enact a more permanent solution.

“The general support between the two parties is there,” Kupec said. “We all agree that that needs to get done.”

Kupec and Peterson signal political independence

Sturrock said Kupec and Peterson are both vulnerable to trickle-down crossfire aimed at party leaders with low approval ratings. The party in control of the White House typically does poorly in the midterms, and that's being amplified by high gasoline and diesel prices.

And in Minnesota, DFL candidates may still face the brunt of the blame for the state’s fraud issues.

“The Republican candidates have a ball and chain around their ankle metaphorically. That's Donald Trump,” Sturrock said. “Democratic candidates have a ball and chain around the other ankle, and that's Tim Walz."

Both candidates have argued they aren’t party loyalists.

Kupec pointed to his tenure in the state Senate, where he’s sometimes split with his party to push for Republican-favored agriculture bills that he said represent the interests of the district.

“Fidelity to the district around specific issues is more important than fidelity to the party on a certain issue,” he said. “And if there is a vote along party lines that would really negatively impact the district, you should vote with the people in your district on that one."

On fraud, he said since taking office in 2023, he’s pushed for efforts to add more oversight and increase penalties for people who take unfair advantage of state programs.

“We appropriated these funds because we saw a need, and the people that had that need, they didn't get those funds because of some pretty poor oversight by this administration — by the Walz administration,” he said.

Peterson calls himself a right-wing moderate and said he “doesn’t agree with Trump on everything,” but he failed to cite a specific example of where he breaks with the administration.

“A lot of the things that they're trying to cast me in this district is — they're trying to tie me to Trump,” he said. “I don't know Trump, OK? Trump doesn't call me at home. He doesn't text me. We don't have a relationship at all.”

In his interview with MPR News, he defended the war in Iran and the administration's trade war. And on the surge in immigration enforcement earlier this year, during which two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration agents, he said “things weren’t handled perfectly,” but wouldn’t say whether the shootings were justified or not.

“I think Metro Surge could be summarized as a federal government that has a responsibility to deal with immigration and a state that was unwilling to work with our federal government,” he said.

He does distance himself from some of the people spending money on his behalf. He was surprised to see the attack ads against Kupec starting as early as March, and dislikes ads that claim Peterson will “stop Somali gangs.”

“We shouldn’t target people,” he said. “I think there's enough facts with his voting record that they could spend a million dollars just talking about.”

Kupec said he’s upset that the groups in his corner haven’t spent as much on the race yet.

“Their plan, apparently, was to spend some money at the end of the race, and you hope that that's not too little, too late,” he said.

Sturrock expects Democrat-leaning groups will show stronger numbers next week, when another campaign filing deadline will reveal how much more money groups have spent on this race in the last month.

A lively showdown in Minnesota’s history-making race for governor put the nominees’ records and future plans for the state in sharp focus Wednesday night, giving voters a clear contrast between DFLer Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth.

It was likely the final time the candidates will debate in a race that has drawn tens of millions of dollars in advertising.

The leaders — either of whom would be Minnesota’s first woman as chief executive — tried to link the other to unpopular figures in their party.

For Klobuchar, it meant repeatedly associating Demuth with President Donald Trump.

“It is very clear that we need a governor who is not a rubber stamp of Donald Trump, and we need a governor that's going to focus on you and not just do the bidding of a billionaire from Wisconsin that's paid for 80% of her ads,” Klobuchar said, referring to a manufacturing mogul’s large contributions to a pro-Demuth group.

For Demuth, the goal was to paint Klobuchar as a continuation of Gov. Tim Walz.

“What we haven't heard from Senator Klobuchar is how she has separated herself from Tim Walz,” Demuth said. “She never has once come up with a policy that she disagrees with Tim Walz on.”

Both rebutted the other’s portrayal. Klobuchar said she would have tackled the state’s fraud problem sooner and would have divided up a prior budget surplus differently. Demuth said she has parted with Trump over tariffs and decisions around beef imports.

That, too, drew a sharp response from Klobuchar.

“To quote an old, old story from Walter Mondale. ‘Where's the beef?’ I care about beef too. But when you look at what's happening to people in Minnesota with their health care, when you look at what's happening to people right now with their tariffs, that's the best you can come up with?” Klobuchar said. “I really can’t believe it.”

Demuth said Democrats couldn’t be trusted to fix the fraud the current administration allowed to fester. She said she would demand jail time and other sanctions against people caught stealing public funds.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” she said. “And Minnesota has been fooled too many times by the inadequate leadership here in the state of Minnesota.”

And so it went for a full hour in the debate, hosted by Fox 9 and Gray Media. The questions from moderators covered many topics, including taxes, healthcare, cancer treatment, gang violence and mining.

Klobuchar often mentioned bills she’s worked on in Washington around healthcare access and agriculture. Demuth cited her role as a legislator, including two years as House speaker, to address issues of childcare and doctor training. Both described themselves as accustomed to working in bipartisan fashion.

While the debate format constrained many follow-up questions, the candidates returned to topics to add on or inserted new topics to get more points across.

Some points of discussion included:

Abortion:

• Klobuchar said she supports reproductive healthcare for women: “I am on their side and support their right to make a decision with their family and their doctor. My opponent wrote the bill, authored the bill to ban abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest, and what's worse, to send doctors to jail.”

• After the debate, Demuth said abortion is settled law: “I think Senator Klobuchar is looking for things that she can try to drive a wedge in, but it is settled law here in the state of Minnesota. Now that bill that I had never went any place at all.” She noted a 1990s court ruling that protects abortion access.

Gas prices:

• Klobuchar said the fastest way to bring down gas prices is to stop the war in Iran. "That is it, beginning, middle, and end. And when you look at what my opponent brings up, when we had a debate earlier this week, she actually brought up and blamed it on the Keystone Pipeline." Klobuchar said she has voted for measures to end the war, but those probably wouldn’t have a binding effect on Trump.

• Demuth said Klobuchar voted against the pipeline, which would have increased oil supply. She also cited cost pressures from programs enacted when DFLers had full Capitol control. "When we look at gas prices and the overall cost of things here in Minnesota, it is because Democrats in the state of Minnesota have exploded our budget." She said she would remove an automatic inflation measure to the gas tax. That indexing increases the per-gallon cost by less than one cent per year to help with road construction funding.

Mining:

• Demuth said she would rescind Walz's executive order on mining aimed at blocking copper nickel mining near the Boundary Waters: "We can look at mining safely here in the state of Minnesota, safer than any place else in the country."

• Klobuchar said she'd give the order a fresh look but noted she has voted to protect the Boundary Waters. "And my votes in Washington show that when there was an unprecedented maneuver to try to hurt not just the Boundary Waters but all public land."

Gun measures:

• Klobuchar: “She had a family in their living room, the Moyskis, the little Harper Moyski, that was killed when the bullets ran through the stained glass windows at Annunciation Church. She told them she would give a vote for the gun safety package. Allow for a vote, no matter how she voted on it. And she did not. She lied to them in their own dining room.”

• Demuth: “I'm a mom of four kids that were in the community, the Rocori community, when we experienced gun violence and tragedy in our own school. What we were talking about then was the need for mental health supports, called bullying when that happened. And I have done that. When I had the honor of meeting with the families that were highly impacted by the tragedy at Annunciation, I gave them my word. I would not lie to them, but I said bills will be introduced, they will go through the process, and they will be voted on.” The bills died in tie votes in committee and efforts to secure an up-or-down House vote failed.

Cancer treatment:

• Both candidates are breast cancer survivors, which came up multiple times in the debate. They each said they would work to improve screening and post-cancer evaluations for patients.

• “It is important for people to realize that sometimes we can have things in common even when we differ politically,” Demuth said about their shared health situation.

• “I know that the speaker's done some work in this area, and I will be very excited to work with her on everything from breast cancer screenings to making sure that we find a cure when it comes to cancer,” Klobuchar said. “And I appreciate her work on it.”

Making history:

• Klobuchar: “I don’t do it because I want to be the first woman. I do it because I want to get results for all of you.”

• Demuth: “I look forward to serving — if given the opportunity, your trust in me — as the first female governor here in the state of Minnesota and the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state in the United States.”

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan provided evidence Wednesday of her membership in an academic honor society, undermining a national publication’s report that she inflated her credentials.

The jarring turn followed a story in the Wall Street Journal earlier in the day that said Flanagan did not qualify to be a member of Phi Beta Kappa when she graduated from college. The society contacted Flanagan’s campaign to provide proof of her membership since 2002, the year she graduated from the University of Minnesota.

“I imagine that it's because they saw the graduation program, which didn't indicate it,” Flanagan told Fox 9 in response to the Journal report. She said it was inaccurate reporting and said she’s been a member since 2002.

Flanagan’s campaign shared a screenshot of her membership status.

The campaign also shared a statement from the Chief Operating Officer of Phi Beta Kappa.

“I can verify that Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, having been inducted in 2002 at the University of Minnesota,” said Amber Cox, according to the campaign statement.

The entire episode underscores how Minnesota’s Senate race could be climbing on the national radar for Republicans as they cling to a narrow majority and risk losses elsewhere. Opposition research, a fixture of campaigns, tends to filter out when races are seen as competitive as recent polling has. More outside spending targeting Flanagan also has flowed in lately after a sleepy campaign since she and Republican Michele Tafoya notched their nominations in August.

The Journal’s story was based on a comment Flanagan made during a 2016 hearing, when she served in the Legislature.

According to the Legislature’s daily online update, Session Daily, Flanagan said she graduated with the honor during an education innovation hearing.

“Everything changed, there was a switch, something clicked,” she said. “I graduated Phi Beta Kappa because I saw myself reflected in my teacher and I saw myself reflected in my curriculum.”

The Journal reported that the commencement program for Flanagan’s 2002 University of Minnesota class did not list Flanagan as an honors student.

It’s clear, however, that the Flanagan-Tafoya race is attracting more attention in recent days.

In recent weeks, national groups have spent $1.1 million against Flanagan. In total, there have been around $2.7 million in independent expenditures spent on this general election. That pales in comparison to many other tightly contested Senate races nationwide.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar told supporters Tuesday that a federal investigation and search of her home is an intimidation attempt ahead of the midterms.

“We’re not going to be intimidated. We’re not going to be silenced. We’re not going to be scared,” Omar said in a video posted on Facebook on Tuesday night.

The full scope of the investigation into the Minnesota congresswoman is unclear. Federal agents raided Omar’s Washington, D.C., home last week and seized her phone. The Wall Street Journal has reported the Trump administration’s ultimate goal is to strip Omar of her U.S. citizenship and deport her.

The investigation comes after President Donald Trump has repeatedly made racist comments about Somali people and Omar herself, including calling Somalia “barely a country” and the congresswoman “garbage.”

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has referenced an investigation into potential fraud in Omar’s family’s immigration paperwork. Separately, U.S Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has said her office is investigating Omar’s financial disclosures.

Omar’s attorneys have written there is “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.”

Historically the Justice Department has avoided public investigations of candidates within 60 days of an election.

According to her House biography, Omar and her family fled the civil war in Somalia when she was 8 and lived in Kenya as refugees before coming to the United States in the 1990s.

Omar became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000, according to her lawyers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday announced a $25 million program to encourage the public to blow the whistle on suspected fraud in the U.S. government as they ramp up efforts to end the abuse of federal programs and dollars.

The White House said that under the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, or WHIP, anyone who submits a tip to fraud.gov that leads to a fraud conviction or a significant federal enforcement action is eligible to receive up to $30,000, and that the Justice Department will administer the program.

During the announcement, Trump said payments will work out to a 1 percent commission on the dollar amount of fraud the tip helps uncover. Trump also said he will decide who gets to collect reward money in cases where more than one person claims to have provided the tip.

“I will be the arbitrator of all these decisions,” Trump said during an Oval Office event Tuesday with Vance and other administration officials. “It'll be a binding arbitration.”

Trump said journalists could participate in the program.

The Republican president has undertaken an aggressive effort to eliminate fraud in government, establishing a task force on the topic in March and putting Vance in charge of it.

Critics have accused Trump and his family of profiting from the presidency through their many business ventures. The White House has countered by saying that Trump acts only with the best interests of the American people in mind.

Vance, who said his work leading the task force is “fun,” said tax dollars are being stolen.

“The president has said it must stop. It is stopping. And if you want to help us stop it, you get to share in the rewards," the vice president said.

Trump was expected during the event to present a $10,000 check to Nick Shirley, a right-wing influencer who posted a video last year that said members of Minnesota’s Somali community were running fake childcare centers to collect federal subsidies.

The 24-year-old's video caught the attention of the Trump administration and conservative activists, though inspectors said the centers were operating as expected. Investigations, searches and arrests followed and the Trump administration said cracking down on fraud in Minnesota was a key reason for the federal immigration enforcement action.

“When you expose fraud, you help save America,” said Shirley, adding that fraud steals from poor and needy people.

In July, one woman, Fahima Mahamud, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States by submitting inflated reimbursement claims for meals allegedly served to children at her childcare center, according to the Justice Department.

The White House says Mahamud was featured in Shirley's video.

Minneapolis is expanding early voting hours and adding pop-up polling places ahead of Election Day. Mayor Jacob Frey said the one-day voting locations, which started Monday, are a way to ensure voting access for residents.

“We're seeing efforts to restrict access to the ballot and concerns about whether election officials can do their job without intimidation or interference, and so Minneapolis — we're taking a very different approach,” Frey said Monday at a pop-up voting location.

Election Day is about two weeks away, but Minnesota voters have been able to vote early for the past month either by mail or in person.

Turnout has been high so far. More than 200,000 ballots were cast in the first four weeks of voting, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office. That’s more than the approximately 170,000 ballots that were cast in the first four weeks of voting during the 2022 election — the last midterm election.

Patricia Danielson and Tom Bauer cast their votes Monday at the Webber Community Center, the first of 12 pop-up voting locations in Minneapolis. They decided to vote early after receiving a mailer from the city advertising the pop-up.

“I didn't trust my ballot in the mail,” Danielson said.

In September, the Supreme Court blocked Republican President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to restrict mail-in voting.

“The line was relatively short, and they were very well organized, and everything just went along nice and smooth,” Bauer said.

Minnesotans can still vote early by mail, but the Secretary of State’s Office recommends voters apply for an absentee ballot before Oct. 20. Ballots must be received by Election Day, either by mail or in person.

The deadline to register to vote has passed, but Minnesotans can register to vote at their voting location when they vote.

Minneapolis voters can find out where to vote early in person here. Early voting information for every county in the state can be found here.

With control of the state Legislature likely coming down to a handful of competitive districts scattered across Minnesota, one race could be the biggest bellwether — the state Senate rematch between incumbent Democrat Grant Hauschild of Hermantown and his Republican challenger, Andrea Zupancich.

Four years ago Hauschild won by only 703 votes in the district that stretches from the townships surrounding Duluth, up the North Shore of Lake Superior, and west along the Canadian border.

“Last time it was a squeaker, and it’s going to be that way again,” said Cindy Rugeley, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. “I suspect it’s a one percentage point race.”

In a state Senate where Democrats held a one-seat advantage, Hauschild was often a moderate swing vote, including on several gun-related proposals.

He’s also the last Democrat standing in a region that just eight years ago was entirely represented by the DFL. Since then northeast Minnesota, especially the Iron Range, has shifted dramatically toward the GOP.

Even Zupancich, the mayor of Babbitt, said she voted for former Democratic Iron Range legislators Tom Bakk and David Dill. “The people haven’t changed. The party has changed, and I hear that a lot,” Zupancich said last week at the VFW in Hoyt Lakes, where she greeted locals sipping beers before a meeting of the local ATV club.

Dave Ebnet, who described himself as a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment Republican, told Zupancich she had his vote.

"We need a change,” he said. “This fraud thing and everything else, it's like nobody cares."

The retired plumber, 76, worked for decades at LTV, an iron ore mine that closed 25 years ago outside Hoyt Lakes. He's frustrated that the proposed PolyMet copper mine that’s been in the works for years at the old LTV site, now called New Range Copper Nickel, still hasn't been built.

“If you look at the Democrats, Klobuchar right down the line, they talk the story, but they don't walk the walk,” Ebnet said. Democrats say they support mining, “but they will not do anything to help us,” Ebnet added. “And when it comes to a vote, they vote with the environmentalists just to shut us down up here."

‘Bipartisan senator’

But Hauschild says he's not afraid to buck the Democratic party on issues like mining. He spoke out strongly against Gov. Tim Walz's recent move to temporarily block proposed copper mines near the Boundary Waters.

"What I'm really worried about is whether it's at the federal level with President Trump or at the state level with now Governor Walz, using executive orders on these types of projects is really a dangerous precedent,” Hauschild said. “What it does is it really undermines that environmental review process.”

Hauschild worked with Republican legislators from the Iron Range to extend unemployment benefits for workers at two closed taconite mines in the region. He’s received the endorsement of the United Steelworkers union, which represents mineworkers, as well as other major unions across the area.

Last week, at an endorsement event with Teamsters Local 346 in Duluth, Hauschild said Democrats tend to fight for wages and benefits and support the organizing rights of workers, while Republicans typically back the projects where union members work, including sometimes controversial proposals such as mining proposals.

"And what's missing is politicians, frankly, that are with labor on all of the issues that matter to them, and that's where I try to be a champion for the Teamsters and for all of the trades and labor groups that have endorsed me,” Hauschild said.

Hauschild says he puts the interests of his district over politics, and has worked hard to be a “bipartisan senator.” He touts his record working across the aisle to pass business and environmental permitting reform.

“He’s shown us that he'll stand up for working people, not simply toe a party line,” said Hannah Alstead, political director for Teamsters Joint Council 32.

But Zupancich questions how much Hauschild really bucks his party. During a recent debate in Duluth, she said the incumbent voted with Democrats about 95 percent of the time during his first term.

Zupancich runs a real estate business in Babbitt and is wrapping up her tenth, and what she says will be her final year as mayor of the small town near Ely. Her husband is one of the fifth generation owners of the well-known northern Minnesota grocery chain Zup’s.

She said she was motivated to run for the seat again by the state social service fraud scandals.

"It's a matter of representing your people,” she said. In local government “we’re held accountable, and we have much smaller budgets, and we have to account for every penny and watch for every penny, and we're the stewards of the taxpayers' dollars." She said state taxpayer dollars need to be treated with the same care.

Zupancich’s other priorities include lower taxes and creating jobs so people can stay in the region’s small towns. People “want to have their families stay here,” she lamented. “Everyone is leaving.”

Cash flooding in

At the VFW in Hoyt Lakes, Jim Carlson, who works for Canadian National Railway, praised Hauschild for his work on behalf of ATV riders. But he said he's still undecided on the race. He wants politics to be less divisive.

"I'd like to see a little bit more moderate representation,” Carlson said. “So we can pull the state back together.”

Meanwhile a lot of political advertising money is flowing into this year's rematch. More than $1.2 million has already been spent by outside groups. And that figure is sure to grow when the next spending reports are filed next week.

"I think it's stunning,” said Rugeley, the UMD political scientist. "It shows how important this race is to both political parties and how bad both of them want to retain control of the state Senate."

Another race in the region is also garnering a lot of attention. A state House race two years ago centered around the more rural areas surrounding Duluth was even closer than Hauschild’s victory. Republican Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar of Fredenberg Township won by only 159 votes.

This year, Democrat Aaron Schweiger of Hermantown is hoping to flip the seat. Rugeley expects that race to be extremely tight as well. But she said she wouldn’t bet on anything this election cycle.

While there is a lot of anti-Trump sentiment among the electorate, she said, if voters want change, that could also work against Democrats in Minnesota.

“Neither party right now is beloved,” Rugeley emphasized. “I would not go out on a limb for any candidate in any race this year.”

A Minnesota man whose wife was one of six U.S. soldiers killed in an Iranian drone strike in March pressed Vice President JD Vance for accountability during a town hall event.

That town hall in Michigan, which aired Saturday night, was organized by CBS News.

Joey Amor was one of the people given a chance to address Vance. Amor’s wife, Master Sgt. Nicole Amor of White Bear Lake, died in the March 1 attack in Kuwait, at the start of the ongoing war with Iran.

Family members of the soldiers who died, and surviving members of that unit, have raised concerns about whether the military left them vulnerable to attack.

“Though the Iranian drone was the weapon that killed my wife, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of fundamental failures that led up to that,” Joey Amor told Vance, saying that the families of the six fallen service members are “living in a nightmare.”

“There’s a failure in the leadership, and I want to know how this administration is going to start holding those leaders accountable for the actions and the deaths of the soldiers that we honor and that we love,” Joey Amor said to the vice president.

Vance initially responded that it was “literally the first time I’ve heard of this.”

But he added that being vice president “is an amazing honor, but you live in a bit of a bubble and sometimes information doesn’t filter up to me. This is an opportunity for it to filter right directly to me, and I promise you, I will take every single failure extremely seriously, and we’ll work on it.”

Vance also then acknowledged “there were issues with how, where troops were located that we realized was a huge mistake, and that we could do better on, and we have changed that.”

Vance pledged to speak more with Joey Amor after the town hall.

In a statement issued by Red Lake Nation Tribal Council on Monday, chair Darrell Seki Sr. said that he will not retire or step down from his position as the tribal nation’s elected chairman.

“Our Nation is going through a difficult time and our members are looking for steady leadership; we owe you, our membership, a Council that stands united in purpose,” Seki wrote, stating he has informed the Red Lake Tribal Council in formal writing that he will continue to carry out his duties.

Seki's statement comes after Red Lake Nation announced on Friday that the tribal council “engaged in a difficult but necessary discussion” and Seki agreed to step down from his position in two weeks. The Friday statement was shared on Red Lake’s Facebook account and website but has since been deleted.

Rumors of Seki’s resignation circulated late last week after the Department of Interior released an 11-page document describing the legal justification for the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Sept. 10 takeover of the tribe’s family and children’s services program.

The “reassumption notice” accused the tribe’s child welfare program, Ombimindwaa Gidinawemaaganinaadog, of a pattern of inaction while children were “neglected, abused and malnourished.”

In his Monday statement, Seki wrote that he would continue working for Red Lake and called for unity.

“I look forward to continuing to work together for the good of the Red Lake Nation. We are strong, and we must stand as one,” Seki said.

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.  

DFLer Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth found alignment Monday on some approaches to managing Minnesota’s business environment, telling a Chamber of Commerce crowd that they’d avoid new taxes, fight fraud and speed up permitting.

But each candidate for governor held herself up as the one with the track record, know-how and vision for getting things done.

It was the first time Klobuchar and Demuth went head-to-head since each were nominated this summer. By today’s debate standards, this one was fairly tame with few direct exchanges. It’s likely one of just two times they’ll share a stage. The second, more traditional candidate debate is scheduled for Wednesday night in Rochester.

The candidates frequently broke from the topic at hand to rhetorically jab one another over perceived shortcomings.

Demuth, the current Minnesota House speaker, said Klobuchar wouldn’t do enough to address fraud or the expense of state government. Demuth tried to tie the current U.S. senator to two-term Gov. Tim Walz, who has been in charge as hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud in state programs were unearthed.

“I have to ask you this: Are you better off today than you were just eight years ago? Are your businesses better off today than they were eight years ago?” Demuth asked the crowd.

“Senator Klobuchar has never once distanced herself from Governor Walz and every single policy that he has put in place that has increased the prices and made it harder to do business and to be able to just live our lives here in Minnesota,” Demuth continued.

Klobuchar contested that appraisal as she made space between herself and Walz.

“I'm different than Tim Walz. I know you wish you were debating Tim Walz. But I'm the one here right now,” Klobuchar said, adding that she “would have caught that fraud. I would have done something about it.”

She blamed the current hardships on President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran. She said Demuth has been timid toward Trump.

“We need a governor that is going to work across the aisle but also stand up to that, stand up to these tariff/taxes that are costing Minnesotans $2,000 a year and has brought our exports down 13 percent in our state,” she said “Stand up to this war in Iran, which has meant our gas prices have gone way up.”

Both also said they’d look to streamline permitting, pursue additional guardrails on artificial intelligence and boost funding on technology that counties use to enroll people in government programs.

Each promised to review Minnesota’s relatively new paid family and medical leave program. Demuth said she would consider scaling back the number of weeks someone is eligible for paid time off and which relatives fit under the care component.

Klobuchar said she would keep an open door to business owners to suggest improvements while making sure families are protected.

What about data centers?

They parted slightly on data centers.

Demuth called them a “local control issue.”

Klobuchar said the state “has to have some involvement. These are major projects. But in the end, if a local community doesn’t want to have a data center, they shouldn’t have to have a data center.”

The hourlong event closed with the nominees giving a closing pitch built around a question about how they would fan opportunities and aspirations of Minnesotans.

Demuth said Minnesota needs a reboot after 16 years of Democrats holding the governor’s office. She said that could only happen if Minnesotans elect a Republican.

“If you're okay with the status quo and what we've experienced over the last eight years, then you have a choice to make in 15 days,” Demuth said. "If you want a fresh start, a new direction and leadership that will move us forward, I would be honored for you to consider voting for me.”

Klobuchar said she’s proven she can work beyond party labels.

“I continue to believe in getting things done. That is what matters,” Klobuchar said. “I don't want to move this state to the left or to the right. I want to move our state forward.”

The candidates ended with a handshake but quickly moved along. They have about two weeks to the election finish line.

The election for Hennepin County attorney has received relatively little attention from a public focused on bigger statewide races and the national political climate. But the contest between former acting Minnesota U.S. Attorney Anders Folk and Democratic state Rep. Cedrick Frazier will decide who runs the state’s largest prosecutor’s office.

It contains echoes of the election four years ago, when voters elected reformer and former public defender Mary Moriarty over a more traditional law-and-order candidate.

Folk is a former military lawyer who later worked as a federal prosecutor for both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. He served as acting U.S. attorney during President Joe Biden’s administration.

Folk said he believes the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office went off the rails during Moriarty’s tenure. She was elected in 2022 in the wake of George Floyd’s killing amidst a surge of support for so-called reform prosecutors around the country.

”There's been a breakdown in the relationship between the county attorney's office and law enforcement,” Folk said. “We've had no strategy from the county attorney on how to deal with things like violent crime, organized crime, gun crime, gang crime.”

Folk said many of Moriarty’s decisions have seemed based on political calculus rather than the requirements of the law — Folk believes his opponent would continue on this path.

“I think there's been an overarching ideological approach to the office that has put results behind rhetoric,” Folk said. “And I think that’s a mistake. “

Frazier has worked as a public defender in Hennepin County, as well as an attorney for Minneapolis Public Schools and a labor attorney for the teachers union Education Minnesota. He said he’ll forge his own path as county attorney.

“It's important that we have a leader in this space that understands the lessons that we learned from the past to make sure that we don't go back to that,” Frazier said. “I've spent my entire career working to make sure that we can make the lives of Minnesotans better — and I think my next step up in this leadership role will do exactly that.”

Frazier said his focus is always going to be on preventative measures, intervention, accountability and rehabilitation.

“I don't make decisions based on whether or not it's politically advantageous. I don't make decisions based on whether or not it's popular,” Frazier said.

“I make decisions based on what is right, and that's listening to the community, working with them, not against them, and doing things that they want to see done — not just doing things to them and telling them it's the right thing that they need because I know best.”

Voters will choose between different prosecutorial approaches

Hamline University political science Professor David Schultz said even though Moriarty isn’t on the ballot, this election is somewhat of a referendum on her style and the social reforms she championed, which she has said are based on data and evidence.

“There is this tension of saying, ‘Do we push hard on sort of very traditional prosecutorial type of issues?’” Schultz said. “‘Or do we try to take alternative perspectives in terms of juvenile diversion programs, or other types of ways of trying to be preventative in terms of crime?’“

Both Folk and Frazier said they’d bring their relationship-building skills to the office, whether it’s with community leaders or police chiefs.

Folk has been endorsed by a number of local law enforcement leaders, including Sheriff Dawanna Witt, as well as by more moderate Democrats like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Rep. Angie Craig.

“Being a good prosecutor means being a minister of justice, and that means you have to focus on enforcement, and you have to focus on ensuring the right consequence for the right person in every case,” Folk said.

“But you also have to focus on what I think of as the other side of the coin, which is compassion and ensuring that we're doing everything we can to keep people out of the criminal justice system. “

Frazier came in first in the nonpartisan primary for the office and received the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement. He’s endorsed by more progressive Democrats including state Attorney General Keith Ellison, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar.

“It's because of the way that I work with people, the way that I build relationships, and the relationships that I built,” Frazier said.

“People know that even when I have disagreements with folks, I'm going to make sure I bring those people in the room to have the conversation, to bring people together, to come up with solutions that are going to work to make everybody safe.”

Folk points out that Frazier doesn’t have any direct experience working as a prosecutor. Frazier says he’ll bring his experience on the civil side and in criminal defense to the role.

“We have line attorneys that will do the day-to-day work, enforcing the law, charging cases, prosecuting cases — my role as a leader will be to manage that office, get everybody going in the same direction,” Frazier said.

“I'm looking forward to getting everybody on the same page, figuring out what we need to make sure they have the best work environment, have the resources they need, and then moving forward together.”

Frazier questions Folk’s decision to work under Trump’s first administration. Folk said he’s worked as a career prosecutor across both Republican and Democratic administrations, but sees the Trump administration as a “disaster.”

“I always tell people, when you call 911, you're not calling for a Republican cop or a Democratic cop,” Folks said. “You're calling for a police officer because you need help right now — fundamentally, I think that's why this is a nonpartisan race.”

Although both candidates said they’ll continue Moriarty’s strategy of prosecuting federal agents who broke Minnesota laws during the federal government’s surge into the state this winter, Frazier said Folk took too long to speak out on the issue and criticized Folk for his service in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota under President Donald Trump’s first administration. Folks’ campaign says he responded to ICE throughout the surge into Minnesota, including during a mid-January interview with NPR News.

Although it’s an important race with real implications for Hennepin County residents, Schultz said it seems like many voters aren’t yet paying attention because their focus is on the races for Senate and governor. Folk has raised more than four times as much money as Frazier, according to campaign finance reports.

“You never want to say money never matters, of course, but money does matter in the sense that it still pays for get-out-the-vote operations,” Schultz said. “But with the local race, a lot of it is just going to be reminding people to show up and vote.”

St. Paul police Chief Axel Henry has filed an amended complaint in his lawsuit against Mayor Kaohly Her, directly accusing the mayor of retaliation and making false statements to investigators.

That brings the total number of counts in Henry’s lawsuit to seven. The suit, originally filed on Sept. 23, already included retaliation claims against the city, and sexual harassment and battery allegations against Her.

In the amended complaint filed last week, Henry alleges that the city would not provide him with unredacted documents from an outside investigation into the mayor’s conduct. That investigation was launched in response to concerns raised by Henry earlier this year.

The outside investigation, by St. Cloud-based Resolute Law, cleared Her of sexual harassment, but found she acted inappropriately.

The amended complaint points to what Henry claims are “myriad” misstatements made by Her to the outside investigators, and included in the report, “none of which the City or Mayor have ever publicly corrected.”

Specifically, the complaint points to comments Her made to investigators about the police department allegedly acting autonomously, without consulting the mayor or the St. Paul City Council, on decisions that affected the city budget. That included a police department contract with Axon, a law enforcement technology company.

“As the Mayor and the City well know, the Axon contract on which the Mayor bases her claim that SPPD acted without her approval was a contract entered into by Mayor (Melvin) Carter before Mayor Her took office,” Henry’s amended lawsuit states.

The lawsuit claims that Her knew the statements were false when she made them to investigators and that city officials knew they were false before issuing the investigation findings.

The count added in the amended complaint claims that after Henry reported his concerns about the mayor’s behavior and actions, Her “intentionally retaliated against Chief Henry because of his opposition to and reporting of the unlawful conduct.”

The lawsuit accuses the mayor of “making misstatements to the City’s investigator that could damage Chief Henry’s professional reputation while knowing the statements to be false,” and “creating needless obstacles to Chief Henry’s performance of his duties.”

Her did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has pointed to the investigation’s findings as clearing her name.

The City Council recently approved hiring a law firm to represent Her, at a rate of up to $500 per hour.

The council also hired another law firm to make a determination on whether the city is required to pay the mayor’s ongoing legal fees stemming from the lawsuit.