BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Communications Director Courtney Rice.

The Midwest is the beating heart of America, especially its politics. And fittingly, Democrats’ road to winning the House majority this fall runs squarely through the country’s heartland.

We know voters’ top issue this election is the cost of living. For hardworking families across the country, everything has gotten more expensive – from gas and groceries, to health care and housing. Yet Republicans, after making grand promises to make life more affordable, have - at best - greenlit actions that have only caused costs to rise and - at worst - have mocked, downplayed, and dismissed voters’ concerns.

In 2024, President Trump came close to winning Minnesota (nearly breaking a 48-year Democratic winning streak at the presidential level) and swept the rest of the Midwest on the promise they would “lower costs on day one.” Now, more than 500 days into complete Republican control of Washington and costs are skyrocketing.

At every opportunity, D.C. Republicans have betrayed Midwesterners and sided with special interests. By voting for Trump’s Big, Ugly Bill, Republicans like Brad Finstad (MN-01) ripped away health care and food assistance from millions of Americans, all so they could pay for permanent tax cuts benefitting their billionaire donors. Republicans have lined up to support Trump’s price-hiking tariffs, which have jacked up the costs of everyday essentials ranging from groceries to cars. This all while the President wages a reckless foreign war which has sparked ever-rising gas prices – with Minnesota’s average fuel prices hitting upwards of $4.00 a gallon this past summer, and spikes in fertilizer and diesel prices making it even harder for farmers to stay in the black.

In the Midwest, in particular, voters feel the effects of Republicans’ betrayal profoundly. Farmers are struggling to stay afloat as tariffs spark increased production cost and cut farmers off from key markets. Factories that are the beating heart of many local economies are closing – despite Republicans claiming they’ll bring about a ‘golden age of manufacturing’. Rural health clinics are shuttering due to Republicans’ cruel health care cuts – in MN-01, whose largest employer is the Mayo Clinic and where nearly one quarter of workers are employed in health care and social services, these cuts are devastating local economies. For these reasons and more, there is an opening for Democrats to speak directly to voters’ concerns and win in areas that in recent elections have voted Republican.

Democratic House candidates are leading the way in doing just that by presenting an authentic, forward-looking vision that will address the affordability crisis hardworking families are facing, while being an independent-minded fighter for their district, not corporate bosses or billionaires.

Look no further than Jake Johnson running for Minnesota’s First Congressional District. Jake is running on those very issues that voters care about: bringing down costs, rooting out corruption in government, and investing in the small towns that make the Midwest the incredible place it is to live.

Jake is emblematic of the type of candidates that are stepping up to run for Congress this year. Jake grew up the son of a garbage collector and meter reader, and he – along with his 10 siblings – have worked hard to achieve the American Dream. He understands firsthand the struggles that hardworking Minnesota families are facing right now because he’s lived them himself. Having grown up in Stewartville and working for the past twenty years as a public school math teacher, he’s deeply rooted in his community. Jake’s commitment to southern Minnesota is exemplified in his 21-county tour across the district; his campaign is centered on showing up and listening to Minnesotans who feel left behind by a broken political system.

Compare that to Jake’s opponent, Congressman Brad Finstad, who represents the worst of Washington; instead of owning up to his terrible record in Congress, Finstad has refused to hold public town halls and instead says constituents who wanted him to hold a town hall were just throwing a “hissy fit.”Against his constituents’ interest, Finstad voted eight times to greenlight the President’s tariffs, and five times to continue the President’s war unchecked. And, without a hint of shame, Congressman Finstad recently claimed it was a misconception that Minnesota farmers would pay high diesel prices caused by the war.

Minnesota deserves better.

Because of high-quality candidates like Jake who are speaking to the issues that matter and are grounded in the communities they are running to represent, Democrats this cycle are competing in districts that in recent years have voted for Republicans. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which is the only political committee in the country whose principal mission is to elect Democrats to the House, has made it a priority to compete (and win!) in districts across the Midwest, like MN-01, and the country that other national Democrats have overlooked in recent elections.

This is personal for me. When Democrats stop investing and organizing in communities because we think “we can’t compete,” we lose entire swaths of the country. Take it from me, an Ohio native, who watched her state slide from swing-state status to one dominated by corrupt Republicans who care more about holding power than good governance. It’s why the DCCC is investing and organizing in districts in every part of the country, and especially in the Midwest. In Ohio alone, we’re competing in three Republican-held districts as prime flip opportunities this November. In fact, if we sweep our competitive races in the Buckeye State, Democrats would hold a majority of congressional seats in what is (incorrectly, I think) considered a ‘red state.’

America’s heartland is the birthplace of populist politics. From Minnesota to Ohio and everywhere in between, hardworking Midwesterners banded together to put everyday Americans first. Democrats can re-earn the support of heartland voters who feel their voices are not being represented in Washington – we need to be willing to look beyond conventional wisdom and communicate with voters in every corner of the country. The Midwest deserves honest and hardworking representatives in D.C., and Democrats are going to deliver.

Big Picture

The Minnesota State Fair is officially underway.

That means 12 days of livestock, crop art, politicians pretending they enjoy being photographed while eating and Minnesotans voluntarily waiting 45 minutes to purchase something that has been battered, deep-fried and placed on a stick.

But the Great Minnesota Get-Together also arrives at an unusually appropriate moment in Minnesota politics. The primaries are over. The general election is beginning. And after months of endorsements, debates, conventions and campaign advertisements, Minnesota voters are finally getting a clearer sense of what each candidate is serving.

So Blue North Beacon decided to answer the obvious question: If Minnesota’s major political candidates were State Fair foods, what would they be?

Our selections were determined through an exhaustive methodology involving political analysis, culinary judgment and absolutely no peer review.

Amy Klobuchar: Sweet Martha’s Cookies

There was really no other choice. Sweet Martha’s isn’t the newest or flashiest thing at the Fair. Nobody walks onto the fairgrounds wondering whether people have heard of it.

It is simply an institution. That can be said of Klobuchar as well. For the last twenty years, she has been the highest profile institution in Minnesota politics and produced meaningful legislation at the clip that Martha’s pumps out cookies.

Klobuchar entered the governor’s race with near-universal name recognition, enormous institutional support and an electoral track record that would make most Minnesota politicians jealous.

And like Sweet Martha’s, her greatest political advantage may simply be that an enormous number of Minnesotans already know exactly what they’re getting.

Critics can complain that there are newer and more interesting things available. Then somebody walks past carrying the bucket – and you want one (or four) anyway.

Lisa Demuth: The Pronto Pup

Traditional. Straightforward. Reliably conservative. But not quite the same thing as the corn dog next door.

That feels appropriate for Demuth.

The House speaker emerged from a Republican primary containing a Trump-endorsed Mike Lindell and GOP-endorsed Kendall Qualls by offering Republican voters something recognizably conservative without necessarily offering the most MAGA version available. That distinction could become her entire general-election challenge.

Demuth needs Republican voters to recognize that she’s one of them while persuading swing voters that there is a meaningful difference between her and the national Republican brand.

Which brings us back to the eternal Minnesota State Fair question: What’s actually the difference between a Pronto Pup and a corn dog?

Demuth may spend the next two months trying to convince voters the distinction matters.

Peggy Flanagan: The Apple Donut Ham Grinder

You recognize most of the ingredients but you probably haven’t seen them put together quite like this.

The Apple Donut Ham Grinder takes Minnesota-grown apples, batters and deep-fries them like donuts, then stacks them with ham, arugula, hot honey and whipped ricotta on a hoagie roll. Which, strangely enough, isn’t a bad metaphor for Peggy Flanagan’s candidacy.

Flanagan isn’t running away from the DFL tradition. She’s arguing that familiar ingredients can be assembled into a different version of it - more progressive, more diverse and more explicitly rooted in the coalition that increasingly defines the party’s activist base.

There are also recognizable pieces of the old DFL recipe: labor, working families and an economic populism that would sound familiar to generations of Minnesota Democrats. Flanagan has combined them with a newer progressive politics - and a coalition of progressives, labor, younger voters and traditional DFL constituencies - that may look unconventional on the ingredient list but has an internal logic once assembled.

Sweet, savory, spicy, creamy: the primary demonstrated that Flanagan could turn disparate ingredients into a winning coalition. The result isn’t exactly traditional State Fair fare. But that’s the point.

Flanagan’s argument in the primary was essentially that Minnesota Democrats didn’t need to abandon the DFL recipe. They needed to update it. And voters ordered it.

Now comes the bigger test: It worked at the DFL table but will the rest of Minnesota want a bite in November?

Michele Tafoya: Deep-Fried Ranch Dressing

You probably had a reaction just reading those words.

Deep-fried ranch dressing debuted at the State Fair as exactly the kind of food the Great Minnesota Get-Together does best: bold, attention-grabbing and virtually guaranteed to make people immediately declare themselves either intrigued or appalled.

There aren’t many neutral reactions and that feels about right for Michele Tafoya.

Tafoya enters the general election with something most first-time candidates would desperately want: people already know who she is. Years as one of the country’s most recognizable sports broadcasters gave her a public profile that most political newcomers spend millions trying to manufacture.

But high name recognition comes with a catch – people may already have opinions.

Since leaving the sidelines, Tafoya has developed a decidedly conservative public persona — weighing in on politics, culture and some of the country’s most divisive political debates. Now, as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, she has to determine whether that visibility is an electoral asset or a ceiling.

Because Tafoya’s challenge isn’t getting Minnesotans to notice her, they’ve noticed. It isn’t even getting people to talk about her, they’re talking. Her challenge is persuading enough of the people who took one look and decided “not for me” to reconsider.

Deep-fried ranch dressing understands the problem.

Keith Ellison: Cheese Curds

A Minnesota staple. Loved passionately by its constituency. Viewed considerably less enthusiastically by some people outside it. And after all these years, still drawing a crowd.

Keith Ellison has been a fixture of Minnesota DFL politics for two decades - from the Legislature to Congress to the Attorney General’s Office - and remains one of the most recognizable progressive politicians in the state.

Republicans have spent years trying to make him politically indigestible, Minnesota voters keep ordering another basket.

That durability matters. Ellison has survived millions in negative advertising, close elections, and repeated Republican efforts to turn his political profile into a liability.

And yet, election after election, the cheese curds remain on the menu.

Steve Simon: All-You-Can-Drink Milk

Reliable. Inexpensive. Not particularly flashy. And that’s pretty much the point.

Secretary of State Steve Simon has spent more than a decade overseeing Minnesota elections while maintaining one of the decidedly less theatrical political brands in a state increasingly filled with theatrical politicians.

You don’t hear much about him when everything is working. Then election season arrives, conspiracy theories start circulating and suddenly everyone remembers why the booth is there.

Simon has built his political identity around essentially the same proposition as the State Fair’s all-you-can-drink milk stand: It isn’t new. It isn’t flashy. Nobody is going to put it on a list of the Fair’s craziest attractions. It just reliably does what it says on the sign.

Tim Walz: Turkey Leg

Big. Messy. Impossible to consume gracefully. And after eight years, undeniably part of the scenery.

Walz isn’t on the ballot anymore, but he remains unavoidable in the campaign to succeed him.

Klobuchar will inherit questions about the DFL’s record. Demuth will try to make the election a referendum on it. Fraud, spending, taxes, mining and the legacy of the Walz years will all remain on the menu.

So while the governor may be leaving, the turkey leg is still sitting on the table.

Angie Craig: Cheese-on-a-Stick

Familiar. Substantial. Dependable. And perhaps overshadowed this year by something newer on the menu.

Craig entered the Senate primary with many of the ingredients that ordinarily make for a formidable statewide candidate: a competitive-district electoral record, strong fundraising, significant labor support and a political brand built around winning voters Democrats sometimes struggle to reach.

Then Peggy Flanagan won the nomination.

But losing one contest doesn’t suddenly make Craig politically irrelevant. She remains a member of Congress from one of Minnesota’s most consequential swing districts and a leading voice for the more moderate, suburban and labor-oriented wing of the DFL.

Sometimes the new food gets all the attention.

That doesn’t mean people stopped liking cheese on a stick.

Mike Lindell: Deep-Fried Twinkie

You know exactly what you’re getting. It’s loud. It’s excessive. It isn’t pretending to be good for you. And nobody has ever encountered one and thought: I wonder what the subtle version of this would be.

That’s Mike Lindell.

The MyPillow founder entered the governor’s race with Donald Trump’s endorsement, enormous name recognition and perhaps the most unmistakable political persona of anyone on Minnesota’s ballot. There was no triangulation. No careful repositioning. No attempt to become something more digestible for a broader audience.

Lindell offered Republican voters the full thing. They took a bite and decided to order something else.

Tina Smith: Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade

Not everything at the State Fair needs to be deep-fried, covered in hot honey or engineered to go viral. Sometimes you just want a good lemonade.

That’s Tina Smith.

Smith arrived in the U.S. Senate under unusual circumstances, appointed to replace Al Franken before winning the seat twice in her own right. She never became Minnesota’s loudest politician. She didn’t seem particularly interested in trying.

Instead, Smith built a reputation as a thoughtful, progressive, and pragmatic legislator with a particular focus on health care, mental health, reproductive rights, rural communities and the economic issues affecting working families. In an era of politics increasingly designed to generate attention, there was something refreshing about a senator who often seemed more interested in doing the work than getting credit for it.

Now, after choosing not to seek another term, Smith is preparing to leave the Senate. And perhaps that’s when you appreciate the lemonade most.

It wasn’t the flashiest thing at the Fair. It wasn’t supposed to be. Minnesota was simply lucky to have it (and her) while it was here.

Bottom Line

State Fair foods and political candidates ultimately confront the same unforgiving test.

You can have terrific marketing. You can generate enormous buzz. You can convince people to stand in line. You can even get everyone talking about you.

Eventually, somebody has to take a bite. Minnesota voters get their turn in November.

Minnesota’s first post-primary poll contains good news for Democrats—and a warning they should not ignore.

KSTP/SurveyUSA shows Amy Klobuchar leading Lisa Demuth 52% to 36% in the governor’s race. The Senate contest is closer, with Peggy Flanagan leading Michele Tafoya 46% to 41%. It is one early survey rather than an election forecast, but its issue findings are unmistakable: 35% of voters identify inflation and the cost of living as Minnesota’s most important issue, more than twice the share selecting fraud and more than three times the share choosing health care.

Minnesota’s general election will be an affordability election — and winning it will require more than simply promising to “lower costs.”

The candidates are offering fundamentally different explanations for why life has become expensive. Democrats emphasize housing shortages, medical and child-care expenses, inadequate wages and concentrated corporate power. Republicans emphasize taxes, regulation, government spending and fraud.

Each diagnosis contains some truth. Neither should escape a governing test.

Every affordability proposal should answer five questions:

1. Who saves—and how much?

2. What does the proposal cost, and who pays?

3. Does the office being sought possess the authority to deliver it?

4. When would families notice a difference?

5. How will Minnesotans determine whether it worked?

Measured against that standard, of the four major statewide candidates only Senator Klobuchar has come close to presenting a complete affordability contract to voters.

The preliminary scorecard

Amy Klobuchar: Most specific policy plans involving health premiums, housing and rural development that have been announced to date. Plans address costs, financing and the state’s role for the most part.

Lisa Demuth: Proposing easily understood tax and fee reductions. The complete revenue cost, distribution of benefits and corresponding spending tradeoffs remain unidentified.

Peggy Flanagan: A clear working-family theory centered on wages, benefits and corporate accountability. Many proposals require congressional majorities, and her administrative record remains tied to the Walz administration.

Michele Tafoya: A recognizable tax-cutting and deregulatory philosophy. Her agenda is the least Minnesota-specific, and her support for Trump’s trade and Iran policies complicates her affordability message.

Families experience costs—not economic abstractions

It cannot be said enough — Minnesotans do not experience affordability through a monthly economic report. They experience it when rent is due, a child-care bill arrives or an insurance premium increases.

Minnesota Housing estimates that the state will need 182,000 new homes through 2035. Only 24% of renter households earning no more than 30% of their area’s median income occupy housing they can afford. The agency also estimated that the monthly payment on a median-priced Minnesota home increased from approximately $2,500 in 2021 to $3,200 in 2024 as prices and borrowing costs rose.

Child care presents an equally difficult equation. Child Care Aware estimates that care for an infant and a preschooler consumes approximately 26% of the median income of a Minnesota married-couple family—more than its typical mortgage or rent burden. Providers simultaneously face labor, insurance, food and facility costs that make substantially lower prices difficult without public support or structural change.

Health-insurance costs are also increasing. After enhanced federal premium tax credits expired, MNsure materials showed average individual-market rate increases of approximately 21% for 2026, with increases varying substantially by plan. Separate MNsure projections cited by Minnesota reporting estimated that approximately 89,000 residents could experience net premium increases around 50% because they lost enhanced assistance as well as confronting higher underlying rates.

These are distinct problems. A tax reduction might improve a family’s balance sheet, but it does not create a child-care opening or starter home. A subsidy can provide immediate relief, but it may leave the underlying price structure intact.

A serious agenda must help families now while confronting the systems producing the costs.

Democrats focus on targeted regulatory relief, labor protections, and public investment

Klobuchar’s gubernatorial agenda combines direct assistance with efforts to expand supply.

She has proposed a state tax credit targeted toward farmers, self-employed workers and small-business owners facing higher individual-market health premiums if Congress does not restore enhanced federal assistance. Her housing agenda seeks to put Minnesota on a path toward producing 100,000 homes, including through a rural housing loan fund, tax credits, infrastructure assistance and regulatory changes. She has also emphasized child-care access, rural health care and workforce development.

This approach begins with expenses families actually pay. It also recognizes that Greater Minnesota’s affordability problems include housing for workers, medical access and too few child-care providers—not simply income-tax rates.

But some important questions remain to be resolved. The premium credit does not yet have a complete public cost or detailed eligibility rules. The housing pledge is a statewide production goal, not a promise that state government would directly build 100,000 homes. Its success will depend on private developers, local governments, interest rates, construction costs and legislative cooperation.

Klobuchar has suggested that a top-to-bottom state audit could identify savings to help finance premium relief. An audit is worthwhile buts savings should not be spent on paper before they are found.

Flanagan offers a more explicitly populist affordability theory. She supports a $17 federal minimum wage indexed to inflation, stronger labor protections, expanded health-care access, housing investment and tighter constraints on corporate power. Her argument is that families are struggling because wages have not kept pace while concentrated economic power allows corporations to raise prices, suppress competition and weaken worker security.

That analysis gives Democrats a compelling working-family message, but Flanagan must distinguish what she could accomplish as one senator from what she supports as a national goal. She also cannot separate public investment from administration. As lieutenant governor, fairly or unfairly, she will likely share the political consequences of Minnesota’s program-integrity failures even when she did not directly manage the agencies involved.

Both Democrats regularly link higher Minnesota costs to Trump administration tariffs and the Iran war.

It is important for Democrats to also remember that fraud belongs inside the affordability debate because it diverts resources intended for families, weakens support for useful programs and creates pressure for indiscriminate cuts. Progressive government earns public confidence only when benefits reach the people they were designed to serve.

Republicans offer sexy slogans of “tax relief and smaller government” but insufficient details

Demuth begins from a different premise: Minnesota government is itself making life more expensive.

She has proposed reducing the state’s two lowest income-tax brackets, reversing vehicle-registration fee increases and eliminating the remaining state taxation of Social Security benefits. She also connects affordability to lower spending, reduced regulation and fraud prevention.

These ideas are straightforward. But Demuth has not published a complete fiscal estimate for the agenda nor has she identified the programs, services or positions she would reduce to offset permanent revenue losses.

Tax reductions can increase disposable income. They do not automatically resolve shortages of homes, doctors or child-care providers. If Demuth believes regulation is restricting supply, she should identify which rules she would change, how prices would fall and which protections would remain.

Tafoya similarly emphasizes federal tax reductions, deregulation and preserving major elements of Trump’s economic program. She argues that trade conflicts will eventually produce better agreements and that high Minnesota taxes and fraud contribute to economic pressure. Her record creates a difficult tradeoff to explain. Tafoya supports the Iran war despite the absence of a defined exit strategy. Fighting that disrupted petroleum shipments through the Strait of Hormuz contributed substantially to higher crude-oil and gasoline prices.

Tafoya previously advised consumers strained by fuel prices to consider one fewer trip to Starbucks and accept temporary sacrifice. That is not logically inconsistent with supporting the war, but it reveals who she expects to absorb its economic costs.

Minnesotans are entitled to demand a fuller answer than personal belt-tightening.

Minnesota cannot finance promises with imaginary money

Every candidate must confront the state’s fiscal outlook.

Minnesota Management and Budget projects a $3.7 billion balance for fiscal years 2026–27. Under current-law planning assumptions, the remaining balance falls to $377 million in 2028–29 because ongoing spending is projected to grow faster than revenue. The estimate is uncertain and does not mean Minnesota faces an immediate deficit, but it does reveal a structural problem that the next governor and Legislature must address.

That constraint applies equally to both parties.

Democrats cannot assume that audits, economic growth or future taxes will effortlessly finance every credit and public investment. Republicans cannot claim that fraud recovery and unidentified spending reductions will finance permanent tax cuts.

New programs require funding. Permanent tax cuts require offsets. Regulations should demonstrate benefits that justify their costs. Deregulation should identify the consumer, worker or environmental protections that would be affected.

That is what competent government looks like before an election.

Bottom Line

Minnesota does not need artificial symmetry between every proposal. It needs candidates that can articulate what competent government looks like before an election that can then demonstrate that competence afterwards.

Candidates should prioritize policies most likely to reduce essential costs while preserving fiscal stability:

• Expand housing and child-care supply in metropolitan and Greater Minnesota communities.

• Provide targeted health-premium relief while confronting underlying medical and insurance costs.

• Protect wages, paid leave and labor standards that strengthen household security.

• Remove permitting and regulatory barriers that demonstrably restrict useful production without sacrificing essential protections.

• Attach cost estimates, performance measures and anti-fraud controls to major public investments.

• Reject permanent tax reductions that lack identified offsets or deliver their largest benefits to households least affected by the affordability crisis.

Democrats and Republicans will continue disagreeing about the proper size and role of government. But neither should be allowed to substitute philosophy for arithmetic.

Minnesota voters deserve to know who benefits, what each promise costs, when relief arrives and how success will be measured.

The candidates who provide those answers will offer more than an affordability message, they will offer an affordability contract — and win in November.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Phill Drobnick. Drobnick is an Iron Range native, community leader, and currently serves as USA Curling’s Director of Coaching and Competitions. A four-time Olympic coach, Drobnick helped lead the U.S. men’s curling team to its historic gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

I’ve spent enough time around competition to know something simple: when you’re losing, you don’t blame the scoreboard. You figure out what you’re doing wrong. Minnesota Democrats should take that lesson to heart when it comes to the Iron Range.

For generations, working families across northeastern Minnesota were the backbone of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Miners, union members, teachers and small-business owners believed Democrats understood that a good job could hold together a family, a school and an entire town.

Many of those voters no longer believe that.

The question Democrats in Minneapolis and St. Paul should be asking isn’t, “What happened to the Iron Range?” It’s, “Why did people who voted for us for generations stop believing we were listening?”

This year offers an opportunity to change that.

The Range is telling us what it needs. Communities want good paying jobs. They want strong unions. They want schools with enough students and resources to thrive. They want young people to have a reason to stay rather than leave home looking for opportunity somewhere else.

Mining remains part of that equation. Iron Range communities know mining employment is directly connected to local businesses, municipal services and public schools. Organized labor has also made clear that new mineral development can mean family-supporting union careers.

That doesn’t mean abandoning environmental protection. It means trusting science.

Minnesota can protect its water, forests and outdoor heritage while giving proposed mining projects a fair, rigorous scientific review. A permit is not a blank check. If a project cannot meet tough environmental standards, it shouldn’t be built. But if engineers, scientists and regulators determine that a mine can operate responsibly, Democrats should be willing to say yes.

That used to be a pretty Democratic idea: trust science, protect workers and build things in America.

There are legitimate environmental concerns surrounding copper-nickel mining, and they deserve serious consideration. But Minnesota also has some of the strongest environmental standards and most experienced regulators in the country. If our state’s regulators, applying those rigorous standards, determine that a project can be developed safely and responsibly, then we as Democrats should trust the science, trust the scientists and respect their conclusions.

And that brings me to Governor Walz’s executive order regarding mining in the Boundary Waters watershed. I strongly oppose using executive authority in this way. Decisions this consequential should be made through Minnesota’s established legislative, scientific and regulatory processes not by executive order.

We also shouldn’t stop at the science. Our review process will only protect Minnesota if the standards that come out of that process are enforceable. A rigorous review means little if the requirements attached to a permit cannot be effectively monitored and enforced.

Our review process is only as valuable as the enforcement that follows.

I understand that even a low-probability failure could result in extraordinarily high consequences for the Boundary Waters watershed. That is precisely why the state should focus on enforcing rigorous standards and preparing for the worst-case scenario. That includes strong financial assurance requirements sufficient to address cleanup or remediation if the worst were ever to happen. We can acknowledge the potentially devastating consequences of a failure without abandoning a fair, science-based process.

Simply telling communities that depend on natural-resource jobs what they cannot do is not an economic strategy. Democrats have an opening this year to rebuild a coalition that once connected Minneapolis, Duluth, the Iron Range and working people across Minnesota.

Start by listening. Stand with organized labor. Invest in rural schools. Fight for good jobs. Demand world-class environmental standards. Make those standards enforceable. Hold projects accountable after permits are issued. And trust science enough to follow it wherever it leads.

The Iron Range hasn’t stopped caring about working families. Democrats need to show the Iron Range that they haven’t either.

Governor Tim Walz presented Executive Order 26-10 as an act of environmental courage. Politically, it exposes a fracture Minnesota Democrats have spent years trying to manage.

The party’s coalition includes metropolitan environmental activists who want copper-nickel mining stopped before review begins, northern communities seeking high-wage industrial opportunity, labor allies whose members build and operate mines, and statewide voters who expect the Boundary Waters to remain protected.

Walz’s order does not reconcile those interests; it chooses one faction’s preferred method—a top-down halt—and leaves the rest to defend it. That split is neither hypothetical nor abstract as evidenced by the immediate pushback from local legislators and Labor allies - (including LiUNA, Minnesota AFL-CIO, MN Pipe Trades, IUOE Local 49, Teamsters Joint Council 32, and the Minnesota Building Trades, among others).

These are longtime Democratic allies whose organizing strength and political support have helped sustain the party. Their objection is about more than one mine: it is about whether projects promised a rigorous, science-based review can instead be stopped by executive action before the evidence is assembled.

This presents Democrats with two tests they cannot easily dodge.

1. If they mean “trust the science,” they must explain why Minnesota’s scientists should not finish the review.

2. If they mean what they say about standing with labor, they must explain why workers were asked to absorb the consequences of a decision they had no meaningful role in making.

What Executive Order 26-10 Actually Does

The Executive Order directs DNR and MPCA to stop environmental review and permitting work on nonferrous mining proposals in the Rainy River Headwaters Watershed until litigation over the state’s mine-siting rule and related rulemaking are finally complete. DNR must also withdraw from cooperative participation in federal environmental review, stop offering new state mineral and surface leases, review existing leases for strict compliance and prepare legislation for a permanent ban.

Calling this merely a pause understates it. The combined effect is to strand proposals indefinitely while building a path to prohibition. Importantly, there is a serious question as to whether this is a legally durable path.

Process Matters

There is a respectable case for maximum protection of the Boundary Waters. It is an irreplaceable wilderness and an economic engine for outfitters, resorts and communities. Moreover, treaty rights and downstream resources demand care. But none of that answers the institutional question Walz has created: Why should Minnesota fear its own environmental review process?

A rigorous review does not approve a mine – it asks whether the mine can comply. It develops baseline data, tests water models, examines tailings and waste-rock management, evaluates alternatives, quantifies cumulative effects, establishes monitoring and forces the applicant’s claims into a public record. Permitting then adds enforceable limits, financial assurance and the possibility of denial.

Environmental advocates should want that record. State officials should want Minnesota scientists at the federal table. By ordering DNR not to cooperate in federal review, Walz gives up influence while claiming to protect it.

The Hauschild Challenge (aka DFL Senate majority)

State Senator Grant Hauschild does not have the luxury of ambiguity. He represents mining communities and won as a DFLer in territory where his party’s brand has deteriorated.

To his credit, Hauschild promptly said he strongly disagreed with the order, argued that a decision this significant should not be made by a governor leaving office in months, and noted that no mining ban had moved through the Legislature during his four years in the Senate.

He is right to focus on method. Northern Minnesotans have heard promises that their voices matter; the order tells them the decisive conversation will occur inside the executive branch. Hauschild’s predicament is the party’s predicament. Democrats need candidates who can compete outside the Twin Cities, yet statewide leaders repeatedly place those candidates between their districts and the party’s activist base.

A senator can defend strong standards. He can defend a project denial based on evidence. It is much harder to defend refusing to collect the evidence.

Walz’s order makes every DFL candidate (especially those on the Range) answer for a process they did not design and a permanent ban they were never allowed to vote on.

The Economic Stakes

The economic stakes explain why process matters. Twin Metals projects more than 750 direct permanent jobs and 1,500 spinoff jobs. Those figures come from the company, certainly should not be taken as gospel, and deserve independent testing. So do claims about the project’s tax base, mineral royalties, construction activity and local purchasing.

Yet these are not abstract numbers in Ely or across the Iron Range. Mining positions pay wages that sustain families, schools and small businesses. Copper, nickel and cobalt are essential to electrification, computing infrastructure and defense. A party that wants more clean energy and domestic supply-chain resilience should be able to say where the materials will come from.

Mining opponents counter that the Boundary Waters supports a nearly $1 billion outdoor recreation economy and that contamination could damage livelihoods that already exist. That claim also deserves serious analysis. The right answer is a transparent comparison of risks, benefits, mitigations and alternatives—not dueling press releases followed by an executive veto.

A credible review may determine the location is unsuitable. If so, the record should demonstrate why. Evidence-based denial is stronger, more durable and more legitimate than a decision designed to avoid reaching a decision.

The Authority Question

Walz’s legal footing is not unlimited. He controls executive agencies and likely has broad discretion over their priorities and the leasing of state property. Minnesota Statutes section 4.035 sets the mechanics for executive orders and provides that this order will generally expire 90 days after Walz leaves office.

But the statute does not itself create substantive power. An executive order must rest on constitutional or statutory authority, and Walz’s order cites only authority in general terms.

A governor may supervise the execution of law; he may not amend the Legislature’s policy by announcement. Whether a categorical refusal to perform permitting work conflicts with statutory agency duties is exactly the sort of question a court will likely be asked to resolve.

Why Now?

The order’s timing invites another question Democrats will struggle to answer.

Walz took office in 2019, the year Twin Metals submitted its mine plan. The litigation cited in the order has been pending since 2020. DNR’s review of the siting rule has unfolded for years. If a freeze was essential, why did it become essential only after Congress overturned the federal withdrawal in 2026 and near the end of Walz’s governorship?

The environmental facts did not change recently, but the federal politics did. That may make the order look more retaliatory than deliberative.

Democrats can still choose another path. For example, Klobuchar can defend the Boundary Waters while insisting on competent review. Hauschild should continue pressing for a legislative debate and a recorded vote.

DNR and MPCA should be allowed to assemble the scientific record, with tribal consultation and public scrutiny, and deny any proposal that fails Minnesota standards. Lawmakers can separately debate whether to enact a permanent watershed prohibition. Those positions recognize both the sensitivity of the place and the legitimacy of democratic institutions.

Bottom Line

Walz may win applause from some corners for his order. However, based on responses from many longtime Democratic stalwart organizations, he is getting as much pushback from within the party as praise.

Beneath it all Walz has made trust the real issue: trust in regulators, trust in science, trust in legislators and trust that Democrats mean what they say about commitments to Labor and checks on executive power.

A party cannot rebuild its standing (much less fight for) Northern Minnesota (much less all of Minnesota) by telling its communities that their jobs are negotiable but its conclusions are not.

By now, plenty of people have watched Mayor Frey’s enthusiastic, albeit somewhat stiff, dance performance at the Black Entrepreneur State Fair. Frey does not seem to have mistaken himself for a gifted dancer, nor does it appear as if he’s headed to Dancing with the Stars after leaving City Hall.

In that exchange, he simply accepted his constituent’s invitation, joined the celebration and risked looking like a goof in public—which is exactly what happened. There is something endearing about that, but there is also something instructive in it.

Frey’s dancing and his proposed 2027 budget have almost nothing to do with each other as matters of policy. But they both reveal the invaluable characteristics of Mayor Frey’s leadership: a willingness to enter uncomfortable territory, to participate rather than watch from a safe distance, and to absorb ridicule without retreating into the cautious choreography that governs so many other figures in public life.

The stakes of the budget, of course, are vastly higher. Frey is proposing an 11.3% property-tax levy increase, the elimination of around 100 city positions and more than $20 million in spending reductions. For the owner of a median-value home, the increase would amount to approximately $409 a year. None of that is funny, and none of it should be minimized.

But there were easier ways for the Mayor to present this budget. They would have required optimistic assumptions, predictable expenses left conspicuously underfunded, permanent programs supported with temporary money, or difficult decisions postponed until another year. To his credit, Frey instead chose to put more of the city’s real bill in front of residents now.

His proposal deserves support not because every provision is beyond debate, but because it replaces fiscal wishful thinking with an honest account of what Minneapolis’ core services cost—and asks elected leaders to make the difficult choices that account requires.

An Honest Budget That Admits What Things Cost

In his budget address, Mayor Frey described a budget problem exceeding $60 million. Roughly $33 million is needed to fully fund existing services, with more than $30 million in additional pressures across departments. Inflation, higher labor and operating costs, the expiration of one-time federal pandemic relief and falling downtown commercial property values have all contributed.

Those declining commercial values matter beyond downtown. When office buildings account for a smaller share of the tax base, homeowners inevitably shoulder more of the burden. An 11.3% levy increase will therefore land at a moment when many residents already feel squeezed by housing, food, insurance and utility costs.

That is the proposal’s hardest fact—and the reason its supporters should resist describing it as painless or merely technical. An additional $34 a month is real money for a working family.

But the relevant comparison is not between Frey’s proposal and a city that delivers the same services without collecting additional revenue. That option does not exist. The administration says that without spending reductions and the correction of chronically imbalanced budgets, Minneapolis would need a levy increase exceeding 19%.

Frey’s proposed $2.3 billion budget, including $753 million in General Fund expenditures, attempts to split the difference between two irresponsible poles: taxing residents as though every existing commitment must remain untouched, or cutting as though the city can abandon its basic obligations without consequence. The proposal raises substantial revenue while reducing spending by more than $20 million through program and contract reductions, operating consolidations and the elimination of roughly 100 positions across the City enterprise.

Notably, the Mayor stated that eliminating roughly 100 positions does not necessarily mean 100 layoffs; vacancies, departures and planned retirements could absorb some reductions. But current employees and city services may still be affected, and the council should scrutinize those consequences closely.

Underbudgeting is NOT Saving

The most controversial piece of Frey’s fiscal argument is the Minneapolis Police Department’s overtime budget. His proposal adds $13.1 million to align the overtime line with the costs the city expects to incur, along with $4.3 million for police recruitment and $3.1 million for external contracts.

Critics have an obvious response: MPD has repeatedly overspent, and increasing its budget can look like rewarding weak management. They are right to demand better controls. However, underbudgeting police overtime does not reduce police overtime. It merely obscures the cost until the bill arrives.

Minneapolis cannot responsibly pretend that officers will stop answering emergency calls or conducting necessary investigations when an artificially low overtime line is exhausted. But recognizing the likely expense must come with enforceable controls, transparent authorization practices and measurable plans to reduce overtime dependence (as noted by Mayor Frey in his address). If the expense is recurring and reasonably foreseeable, it belongs in the adopted budget, where residents and council members can see it and hold the department accountable for it.

Honest budgeting and rigorous oversight are not competing principles. Minneapolis needs both. Putting the real number on the page is the beginning of accountability, not the end of it.

What the Budget Proposal Protects

This is not an austerity budget masquerading as reform. Even while proposing cuts, Frey maintains investments that matter to a progressive city.

The plan would bring total 2027 funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to $15.5 million, provide $1.5 million through Minneapolis HOMES to expand affordable homeownership and continue Stable Homes Stable Schools. It also maintains $25 million for downtown vitality, small businesses and cultural and commercial districts.

Those choices matter because fiscal discipline should not become an excuse to withdraw from the city’s future. Housing affordability, commercial corridors, downtown recovery and public safety are not separate challenges. They reinforce one another. A city that cannot reliably provide services will struggle to attract residents and investment; a city that becomes unaffordable will lose the people whose work and community ties make recovery possible.

The best case for Frey’s proposal is therefore not that Minneapolis should expect less from government. It is that residents can expect more only when government distinguishes durable investment from temporary experimentation and pays honestly for the commitments it intends to keep.

Leadership & the Courage to Disappoint

Political courage is an overused phrase, often awarded to elected officials simply for doing something their supporters already wanted. This budget presents a more credible test - Frey is asking property owners to pay more while asking departments and employees to operate with less.

“Fiscal conservatives” will attack the levy increase. “Progressives” will attack program and staffing cuts. Police critics will condemn the overtime allocation, while police supporters will object that rebuilding remains too slow. There is no large constituency organized around the proposition that its taxes should rise and its preferred program should be examined more closely - but that may still be what’s best for the City.

Elected leaders reveal themselves partly through the discomfort they are willing to accept when leadership requires it. Frey could have produced a document engineered to generate friendlier headlines and left the next shortfall to the next budget cycle. Instead, he proposed visible taxes, identifiable cuts and more realistic baselines.

Again, that approach does not guarantee every judgment is above reproach or without pain, but it does demonstrate the courage and willingness to be judged on the real choices.

Bottom Line

A budget is a statement of values, but it is also an operating plan. If the numbers depend on services costing less than everyone knows they will cost, the values printed beside them do not matter much.

Minneapolis does not need its mayor’s dance moves to improve. What it needs is elected leaders willing to risk an awkward moment, an angry constituency and an ugly headline in order to tell residents the truth — Mayor Frey’s budget proposal does that admirably.

At the Black Entrepreneur State Fair, Frey stepped onto the dance floor knowing—or at least learning quickly—that he could not control how he would look. In the budget debate, he has done something more consequential: surrendered control of the political optics in order to put the city’s real choices on the table.

The City Council should avoid the temptation to engage in political grandstanding and work to improve Frey’s proposal where it can. They can change the steps, but they should not dance around the central truth: Minneapolis cannot sustain core services by underbudgeting predictable costs and postponing difficult choices.

Whatever final version of the budget emerges should preserve the honesty, discipline and political courage at the core of Mayor Frey’s proposal.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from State Senator Liz Boldon (SD25). Senator Boldon serves as the Co-Chair of the Minnesota Values Project (MVP) which recently announced its 2027 policy agenda. The MVP 2027 policy agenda can be found HERE.

It’s more clear than ever that corporations and ultra-rich billionaires have rigged the system. They collude with the federal government to move wealth from the bottom to the top through tax breaks, private contracts, and cuts to programs that hurt the rest of us. At the same time, they’re accumulating monopolisitc power over our economy, hoarding our resources, suppressing wages, polluting our neighborhoods, and destroying our laws that prevent corruption. It’s not a free market anymore; it’s their market. this crisis not only undermines our democracy, but it’s making it harder and harder for working class Americans to survive day-to-day life. The rich get richer, and the rest of us are left fighting for the scraps. Cost of the essentials continue to rise as corporate greed eats away the fabric of our society. Minnesotans deserve better, and our elected representatives have the responsibility to act accordingly.

As a Co-Chair of the Minnesota Values Project (MVP), I’m proud of the legislation we’ve passed in recent years to make Minnesotans’ lives better - Universal School Meals, Paid Family Medical Leave, consumer protections against corporate greed, reining in health insurance companies, and more. All of these things have save Minnesota money, time, and peace of mind. But our work is never finished. Whether it’s health care, housing, child care, food, energy bills, Minnesotans are getting price gouged by insurance companies, Big Tech, Wall Street private equity firms, grocery monopolies, and private utilities - it’s unacceptable and unsustainable.

This year, with extensive public outreach and feedback from constituents, MVP has released a new set of priorities to address our neighbors’ most urgent needs, and build on past successes - meeting people where they’re at and delivering for working class Minnesotans.

A fair, resilient state budget: “Trickle-down economics” has been a failed experiment for decades. It turns out that when you lower taxes on the ultra-wealthy, they don’t invest that money back into our communities - they just keep it for themselves and hoard as much wealth as they can. It’s time we ended this cycle of abuse. Instead of giving tax breaks to corporations, we need to close loopholes that allow them to avoid paying into the system that they profit from. With the added revenue from the wealthy paying their fair share, we can provide services Universal No-cost or Low-cost Child Care for Minnesota families. Right now, families are struggling to cover these expenses. Not only would Universal Child Care take these costs off their plate, but every child in Minnesota could receive a head start on their education - which has been shown around the world to be an economic boost. At the same time, we need to continue to empower our state’s new Office of Inspector General to root out fraud against our state programs, and ensure our support programs serve those who need them.

A health care system that works for you: For too many Minnesotans, health care is a luxury. Too many folks forgo seeing a doctor entirely because of the cost. Health care is a human right, and wee have a duty to keep our constituents healthy. By establishing Universal Primary Care and expanding publicly available health care options, we can guarantee that every Minnesota can get the health care check-ups that they need, helping prevent further health complications down the line. Additionally, private insurance companies and their CEOs shouldn’t be able to come between you and your doctor-prescribed care. By reining in our prior authorizations and denied claims, we can hold insurance companies accountable for covering the cost of your care. While the federal government is destroying our health care system, we have an opportunity to build one that centers care for people instead of profits for insurance companies.

A place to live that doesn’t break the bank: It’s essential that we not only invest in building more housing for our growing population, but we must also ban corporations from buying up our supply of singly-family homes, exploiting our neighbors who live in manufactured home parks, and using AI algorithms to increase rents and maximize their profits. Homes are for families to create and enjoy cherished memories; they are not meant to be cash cows for Wall Street private equity firms. At the same time, we must address and restructure our regressive property tax system. Seniors and those on fixed incomes shouldn’t be burdened with tax increases. Instead, we could tax the ultra-wealthy and corporations who have more than enough, so that we can keep our neighbors in their homes.

Keeping Minnesotans safe: Gun violence is the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 18. It wasn’t always this way, and we can absolutely make changes to save lives. By banning semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, we can reduce the number of deaths from firearms and mass shootings. We can save lives with common-sense solutions that are fully compatible with second amendment rights. It’s not an option to do nothing when kids’ lives are at stake.

In addition, we must safegurad Minnesotans’ Constitutional rights and freedoms. We’ve seen the federal government enact a campaign of “retribution” against our state, simply because of the President’s grudge against us. The consequences of that resentment were on full display when ICE occupied our state and kidnapped, disappeared, assaulted, racially profiled, harassed, and killed our neighbors during “Operation Metro Surge.” It was a gross violation of our civil liberties, and those who were responsible must be held accountable. We can and must allow Minnesotans the ability to sue federal agents for violations of their Constitutional rights. At the same time, we must fortify protections in state law, and protect Minnesotans from warrantless intrusions and extrajudicial searches, seizures, and arrests.

While it’s a non-exhaustive list of our Minnesota Values Project priorities, these categories encapsulate our main goals: a better deal for Minnesotans, so that everyone has the ability to thrive and live the American Dream.

Perhaps the most important aspect of our country is that nothing is set in stone. Every day, we strive to that “More Perfect Union” envisioned by those who lived long before us. There is no challenge too big for the American people to overcome. History teach us this, and generations before us have proven that we can make monumental changes for the better. Each movement was built on the one that came before it - Abolitionists, Labor Unions, Suffragettes, Civil Rights activists, the movement for LGBTQ+ rights. All of these and more have yielded equitable advancements in our country’s history. Each one required immense strength, solidarity, and sacrifice, and there were certainly setbacks and obstacles, but We the People and our unrelenting desire for that “More Perfect Union” would prevail each time. I’m confident that we can rise above these challenges in the same way that our ancestors proved it was possible.

On August 11, Minnesota Republicans and Democrats will vote to decide which candidates represent their party on the ballot in the November general election.

The two most high-profile races are the Republican gubernatorial primary and the U.S. Senate DFL contest, but there are also competitive U.S. House primaries and a consequential county attorney’s race in Minnesota’s largest county on the ballot.

While party delegates have endorsed candidates at each party’s respective conventions, the primary will give a broader group of voters the opportunity to decide which candidates will carry each party’s banner into November. The primary contest presents voters with competing ideas and choices about political leadership and governing philosophies.

Candidates have spent months highlighting their political endorsements, party support, governing experience, previous electoral success, grassroots enthusiasm, and campaign strength – now they are asking voters to decide which qualities best prepare someone to win in November and govern thereafter.

All of these credentials are necessary, but none alone are sufficient. Tuesday’s primary results will show which candidates were able to turn their political advantages into voter confidence – and make the most convincing case for the work ahead.

Governor Race: 3 Republican Power Centers - 1 DFL Power House

Minnesota Republicans face a choice among three candidates with different sources of political strength.

Kendall Qualls carries the state GOP endorsement, secured after a ten-ballot convention fight. House Speaker Lisa Demuth offers institutional experience as a legislative leader who has managed a caucus and negotiated at the Capitol. Mike Lindell touts President Trump’s much-coveted endorsement and his strong connection to the MAGA base.

Each candidacy rests on a different claim to leadership.

• Qualls is asking primary voters to respect the judgment of party activists and preserve the influence of Minnesota’s endorsement process.

• Demuth’s case is grounded in governing experience: she can point to the relationships and practical knowledge developed while leading House Republicans through a closely divided Legislature.

• Lindell offers neither argument. His candidacy is built around personal loyalty to Trump, national prominence and an ability to connect with the populist energy reshaping the Republican Party.

The result will therefore say something larger about where power now resides within the Minnesota GOP.

• A Qualls victory would reaffirm the party organization’s role in choosing its standard-bearers.

• A Demuth win would suggest that Republican voters value state-level experience and governing credibility.

• A Lindell nomination would demonstrate that Trump’s endorsement and the MAGA brand can outweigh both the party’s formal process and experience at the Capitol.

Ultimately, whoever emerges victorious will have earned the worst political prize in all of Minnesota politics - the task of taking on Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has defeated Republicans in four statewide races since first being elected to the Senate.

Senator Klobuchar will enter the general election race with a large cash advantage (approximately $4.5 million cash on hand as of late July) and an even greater perception advantage among voters who have largely, and increasingly, supported her from across the political spectrum during her time in Congress.

If Klobuchar goes on to win in November, as most political observers (including this author) believe will happen, she will have cemented her place on Minnesota’s political Mount Rushmore alongside Fritz Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, and Paul Wellstone.

Premier Race: DFL U.S. Senate Primary

The U.S. Senate DFL primary between U.S. Rep. Angie Craig (MN02-D) and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan has been the most hotly contested, and at times personal, race of Minnesota’s primary season. The race has offered the primary’s clearest contrast between two visions for Democratic political leadership and governing strategy.

Both candidates claim that their skill set and experience give Democrats the surest chance to hold retiring Senator Tina Smith’s Senate seat. Craig’s case begins with electoral survival and success highlighting her experience repeatedly winning the politically competitive 2nd Congressional District. Flanagan’s case rests on statewide executive experience, the DFL endorsement, and her support among progressive activists/voters.

Their disagreements over immigration enforcement, fraud oversight and party strategy turn those biographies into competing theories of how Democrats should campaign and govern.

Craig has had the larger financial machine. Through July 22, she had raised approximately $12.75 million and spent $9.18 million, compared with roughly $6.52 million raised and $5.46 million spent by Flanagan – but the money surrounding the race extends well beyond the candidates. By August 6, outside groups had spent about $9.35 million directly supporting Craig and $1.10 million directly supporting Flanagan. Counting ads attacking the other candidate, Craig-aligned groups had spent roughly $16.6 million and Flanagan-aligned groups about $3.4 million.

That spending proves the stakes but will not necessarily determine the outcome.

DFL voters are choosing between Craig’s battleground-tested electability argument and Flanagan’s claim to represent the coalition and direction of the party. Either candidate would be history-making, but the more immediate question is what kind of senator Minnesota Democrats want.

MN02 - Minnesota Race with National Consequences

Craig’s departure to run for the Senate created a DFL primary in a district that remains central to Democrats’ hopes of controlling the U.S. House. The choice is between State Rep. Kaela Berg, State Senator Matt Klein, and former State Senator Matt Little.

Klein emphasizes his work as a physician and legislator while making a pragmatic, Craig-style electability case. Little combines local executive and legislative experience with the DFL endorsement. Berg, a union flight attendant and labor-backed lawmaker, offers the clearest working-class and organized-labor claim.

Through July 22, Klein had raised about $1.22 million and spent $927,000. Little had raised roughly $923,000 and spent $796,000, while Berg had raised about $391,000 and spent $343,000. Those gaps affect each campaign’s ability to communicate, but again, the nomination is not a fundraising award.

From an ideological perspective, Klein has sought to occupy the “pragmatic/moderate” lane while Little and Berg have set out to dominate the more “progressive” lane. It is very plausible that Little and Berg will split the left flank of the electorate, allowing Klein to emerge as the winner.

DFL voters must decide whether the best defense of this battleground seat is Klein’s general-election positioning, Little’s endorsement/progressive stances, or Berg’s labor-centered politics/progressive positions.

MN08 - Building a Credible Challenge

The MN08 DFL primary presents a quieter political test. Trina Swanson and Luke Gulbranson are competing for the right to challenge U.S. Pete Stauber (MN08-R) in a district the DFL once held but has struggled to reclaim.

Here, money is less a measure of dominance than of whether a campaign can build a credible districtwide operation. Through July 22, Swanson had raised about $317,000 and spent $226,000, while Gulbranson had raised roughly $198,000 and spent $181,000. Swanson’s DFL endorsement and financial edge give her the strongest visible infrastructure while Gulbranson brings celebrity from reality television and a northern Minnesota identity.

But the larger challenge begins after the primary: rebuilding DFL credibility across Duluth, the Iron Range and a geographically vast district where trust must be earned community by community.

Minnesota’s Largest County - Hennepin County Attorney Race

The five-way race to succeed Mary Moriarty may be the primary season’s most direct test of public confidence - and voters are not simply choosing between preserving or reversing Moriarty’s record. The two leading candidates are Cedrick Frazier and Anders Folk.

Cedrick Frazier has the DFL endorsement, legislative experience and support from reform-minded leaders. Former acting U.S. Attorney Anders Folk has highlighted his federal prosecutorial experience and endorsements from local institutional figures including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and former U.S. Attorney Andy Luger.

The choice will be consequential for those living and visiting Minnesota’s largest county. Hennepin County’s next attorney will manage a roughly $92 million office while making decisions about violent crime, juvenile prosecution, police accountability, federal-agent misconduct and the future of reform.

More cooperation and more accountability are easy campaign promises; the primary asks which candidates voters trust most to deliver both.

Bottom Line

Endorsements can confer credibility. Experience can demonstrate readiness. Money can amplify a message, and celebrity can command attention.

But none of those advantages casts a ballot.

On August 11, Minnesota voters will decide which candidates have turned their political strengths into something more important: confidence that they can represent their coalition, compete in November and govern effectively.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from former State Senator Matt Little. Little is running in the DFL primary to represent Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.

For far too long, health insurance companies and executives have placed their desire for profit over the well-being of patients. The healthcare cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act only made our healthcare situation more dire. Minnesota’s uninsured rate climbed to the highest it’s been since 2017. Minnesotans know our healthcare system is in crisis, but politicians who would rather tinker around the edges have tried to convince voters that Medicare for All isn’t worth the fight. They are wrong.

America has the best medical care in the world–if you can afford it, but far too many Minnesotans can’t. I know this struggle personally. My mom has been sick for most of my life, and I’ve grown up seeing firsthand how you can do everything right, but still be one accident or illness away from financial ruin.

We are the only developed nation on Earth without universal healthcare, yet we pay the most out of any country for a broken system. Medicare administrative expenses as a percentage of total costs are around 2%, but private insurance spends close to 20% of revenue on administrative expenses. This represents billions of dollars that are not being spent on healthcare. Medicare for all would use an existing system, save $600-800 billion dollars according to a GAO study, and lower costs for everyone. The money we save with Medicare for All can be reinvested to lower costs and improve care.

People shouldn’t be forced to choose between eating, paying rent or affording life-saving medication in the richest nation on Earth.

I’ve heard health insurance executives and lobbyists say that Medicare for All is too bold or too progressive, and that a public option is the more pragmatic choice. I’ve also heard politicians claim that health insurance companies will make passing Medicare for All impossible by pouring millions against it, so we need to do what we can in the meantime and pass a public option, but that isn’t true. Healthcare companies will fight tooth and nail to stop any changes to the healthcare system, regardless of how it’s done–so why should we negotiate against ourselves for another bandaid policy that will fail again?

Public option could make universal healthcare harder to attain-not easier. Health insurance companies will push the most at-risk and poorest patients onto the public option, in an attempt to make it fail. Rates and premiums will skyrocket. The opponents

of universal healthcare would do this in hopes that any fundamental changes would appear impossible, making universal healthcare seem like a hopeless endeavor.

The only real way for us to make sure all Americans get the healthcare they deserve without spending their life savings in the process is to pass Medicare for All. Every other developed nation has it, and pays less than us. It’s time we stop letting corrupt CEO’s and insurance lobbyists coerce us into fifty more years of failed incremental patchwork fixes. It’s time we stopped tinkering around the edges and started implementing a system that will lower costs for all of us.

Despite what insurance companies and corporate-aligned super PACS want you to believe, this problem can be solved if we have the will to fight for it.

If I’m elected to Congress, I will fight tirelessly to pass Medicare for All, so all Americans can get high-quality and affordable healthcare.

Minnesota’s leading DFL candidates will arrive at Farmfest this week prepared to discuss commodity prices, trade, biofuels, crop insurance, rural health care, and the next Farm Bill.

But beneath those policy debates sits a larger political question: Can the DFL rebuild a meaningful relationship with rural Minnesota?

That does not mean recreating the political coalition of a previous generation. Democrats are not going to reverse decades of rural realignment during two days of candidate forums, nor do they need to carry every agricultural county to remain competitive statewide.

The more realistic task is to prove that the “F” in DFL still represents a governing commitment—not merely a historical inheritance.

That means narrowing Republican margins in rural counties, competing more effectively in regional centers, investing in legislative candidates outside the metro, and persuading Greater Minnesota voters that Democrats understand their communities as places to build businesses, raise families, and make a living.

Farmfest offers candidates an unusually prominent opportunity to make that case. Its four forums will feature congressional, gubernatorial, and U.S. Senate contenders during the final week before Minnesota’s August 11 primary.

Simply appearing in Morgan and praising the family farm will not establish rural credibility. The real test will be whether the candidates can demonstrate that they understand how rural Minnesota works—and whether their proposed solutions meet the moment facing Minnesota’s agriculture communities.

The Economic Backdrop

The forums arrive at a difficult moment for Minnesota agriculture.

As BNB previously examined, farmers are being pressured from both sides of the balance sheet. Tariffs and trade retaliation have disrupted export markets, while war and global instability have increased the cost of fuel, fertilizer, shipping, and other essential inputs.

Those pressures matter – but they should be the starting point for the Farmfest conversation, not the entirety of it.

Agricultural policy cannot be separated from the broader viability of rural communities. A farmer may have access to credit and a market for the crop, but the operation will still struggle if workers cannot find housing, parents cannot secure child care, the nearest hospital eliminates services, or the next generation sees no path to remain in the community.

That is why candidates should resist treating Farmfest as a narrowly agricultural policy exercise. The farm economy and the rural economy overlap, but they are not identical – a credible Greater Minnesota agenda must address both.

Four Standards for Evaluating Ag/Rural Credibility

Farmfest forums should be evaluated less like a conventional debate and more like a job interview. Candidates should be judged against four standards: understanding, specificity, independence, and competence.

1. Understanding: Do candidates recognize the differences among commodity agriculture, livestock production, specialty crops, food processing, and the economic needs of rural communities? Or do they speak about “farmers” as though they constitute a single, interchangeable interest group?

2. Specificity: Can they identify actual policies, funding sources, implementing agencies, timelines, or potential legislative partners? Rural voters have heard enough promises to “stand with farmers.” They deserve to know what a candidate will actually do.

3. Independence: Will candidates challenge their own party when its national priorities conflict with Minnesota’s interests? For Republicans, that means answering whether they would oppose tariffs or foreign-policy decisions that raise costs and destabilize markets. For Democrats, it means acknowledging when environmental, regulatory, or permitting policies impose disproportionate burdens on farmers and rural businesses.

4. Competence: Do candidates understand the authority of the office they are seeking? Do they have experience with agriculture policy and/or working with impacted stakeholders and communities? A governor can influence state taxes, permitting, infrastructure, housing, workforce development, and rural health-care policy. A member of Congress can shape trade, the Farm Bill, federal energy policy, antitrust enforcement, and agricultural research. Credible candidates should know the difference.

These standards matter because rebuilding trust will require more than arriving at the right ideological position. It will require demonstrating the practical ability to govern.

Turning Rural Resumes in Rural Credibility

For years, the DFL’s rural decline has too often been discussed as a problem of messaging. If Democrats could find better language—or simply spend more time talking about rural issues—the theory goes, rural voters might return.

Messaging matters but the deeper challenge is credibility.

Rural Minnesotans need evidence that the party understands agriculture as a business, respects the risks producers assume, and recognizes the institutions necessary to sustain a community. That includes profitable farms, functioning schools, accessible hospitals, affordable housing, available child care, competitive markets, and employers capable of attracting workers.

Several DFL candidates entering Farmfest already possess meaningful experience on these issues. The test is whether Democrats can translate those credentials into a governing agenda that resonates with rural voters.

Senator Amy Klobuchar enters the gubernatorial forum with the field’s most established agricultural résumé as the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She has also released a detailed 12-page proposal for expanding Minnesota’s rural and agricultural economies. Her task will be to show how her experience would inform her use of state-level tools—from taxes, permitting, and infrastructure to housing, workforce development, and rural health care (see aforementioned plan).

Rep. Angie Craig can point to her leadership as Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee and experience with the Farm Bill, trade, crop insurance, and market access. Her test is whether she can turn that policy expertise into a broader statewide argument: that strengthening production agriculture and sustaining rural communities are not competing priorities, but mutually dependent parts of the same economic agenda.

Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan enters with a different foundation. Her experience in state government and work involving housing, health care, child care, tribal communities, local food systems, and public investment give her a potentially expansive conception of rural policy. Her test is whether she can pair that broader vision with sufficient command of production agriculture—and convince farmers that they are central to her rural agenda rather than simply one constituency within it.

The U.S. House candidates face more geographically specific versions of the same challenge. In the open MN-02 race, Kaela Berg, Matt Klein, and Matt Little must explain how they would represent a district that joins fast-growing suburbs with agricultural communities. Their test is whether they can present a rural agenda grounded in the district itself rather than relying on standard national party language.

In MN-07, DFL-endorsed Erik Osberg must demonstrate enough agricultural fluency and regional credibility to challenge Rep. Michelle Fischbach on favorable Republican terrain. That means pressing Fischbach to identify concrete results she has delivered for producers and rural communities—while offering a sufficiently substantive alternative of his own.

These candidates enter Farmfest with different résumés, constituencies, and political challenges. But the standard is the same: experience may provide an opening, but credibility depends on showing rural Minnesotans how that experience would translate into competent, relevant leadership.

Between the Lines

Minnesota Democrats should not approach rural voters as a demographic puzzle to be solved every election year.

Rural Minnesota is not culturally or economically uniform. It includes farmers, teachers, nurses, manufacturers, small-business owners, immigrants, construction workers, public employees, tribal communities, and families simply trying to remain near the places they consider home.

A durable DFL strategy must speak to that full coalition AND be built around attainable political objectives.

Democrats do not need to win every township. They need to prevent political collapse outside the metropolitan core, perform better in regional centers, narrow margins in heavily Republican counties, and demonstrate enough consistent engagement to regain a hearing with rural voters.

These forums will not accomplish that task by themselves but they mayreveal which candidates understand the assignment.

Bottom Line

The most important performance at Farmfest will not necessarily come from the candidate with the longest list of agricultural endorsements or the most detailed commodity proposal - it will come from the candidate who demonstrates that rural Minnesota is integral to their theory of governing.

Putting the “F” back in the DFL does not require romanticizing the party’s past or pretending Minnesota’s old political map can be restored – it requires building a modern rural agenda around economic opportunity, community viability, political independence, and competent government.

Farmfest gives Minnesota DFLers a chance to show whether they are prepared to lead that work—or whether rural engagement remains something practiced only when the campaign calendar brings them to Farmfest.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Anders Folk - a candidate for Hennepin County Attorney in the upcoming DFL primary slated for August 11. Folk is a Democrat, Marine, former Acting U.S. Attorney, and Hopkins, Minnesota native. He attended the University of Minnesota for college and law school before beginning his career under County Attorney Amy Klobuchar.

For 1.2 million residents in Hennepin County, the County Attorney’s Office plays a major role protecting public safety and our fundamental rights under the Constitution. It is the County Attorney’s Office that must ensure that everyone in our justice system is treated fairly, afforded equal protection under the law, and able to feel safe in their neighborhood.

I am running for Hennepin County Attorney to make our county safer for everyone and because I have the experience to make that vision a reality.

I have dedicated my career to public service and public safety. I have served as a Marine, a career federal prosecutor, and as the former Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota during the Biden administration. Throughout my career, I have led teams of attorneys, law enforcement officials, public and safety professionals to help make our communities safe for everyone. I have personally handled hundreds of criminal cases ranging from international terrorism to white-collar fraud, organized gang crime and gun violence. I have held accountable those who have targeted government officials, houses of worship, and tax payers’ money. I have ensured that law enforcement officers who violate the law are held accountable. In short, I have worked as a prosecutor to ensure justice without fear or favor and have made accountability and the rule of law the cornerstones of my work.

With over 500 full-time staff, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is the largest public law office in Minnesota. That makes the office a bigger operation than many state agencies, including the Minnesota Department of Education. It also makes the role of Hennepin County Attorney one of the most consequential positions in Minnesota government. It deserves a proven leader and experienced prosecutor.

The office prosecutes the majority of felony crime in Minnesota's most populous county, handling thousands of cases every year that range from property crime to the state's highest-profile prosecutions like those against any federal agents who violated Minnesota law during Operation Metro Surge.

As the cases against federal agents who shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti move forward, and the eyes of the world again turn to Minnesota, the County Attorney’s Office will have the support it needs under my leadership. I am the only candidate who has experience investigating and prosecuting cases in federal court. I have outlined the clearest plan of any candidate in this race to succeed in federal court, based on years of experience in federal court, and will set up a taskforce that will include former federal prosecutors to help execute my plan and vision for accountability.

I know what it takes to lead teams of attorneys through this work because I have done it.

As a military lawyer, a career federal prosecutor, and the former head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, I have served at every level of the justice system. As Acting U.S. Attorney, I led a public law office tasked with handling violent gang crime, international terrorist organizations, fraudsters, and white supremacist groups, and I signed the federal indictment charging Derek Chauvin with violating George Floyd’s civil rights. Uniquely, I have also spent much of my career defending those who cannot afford their own attorney. Both as a Marine Corps attorney and a private lawyer, I have represented many at the most difficult moments of their lives. From that experience too, I know how important fair and impartial prosecutors are in our system of justice.

The race for Hennepin County Attorney is a nonpartisan race, and for good reason. Running a public law office should never be a partisan exercise. It is a leadership opportunity that demands judgment, experience, and the ability to perform under pressure, not ideology. Over the last four years, the County Attorney’s Office has strayed from those values. Do we want to again experiment with justice and public safety by turning over the office to someone who has never investigated or prosecuted a case and never led an office of prosecutors?

This year, voters here have the opportunity to evaluate candidates on whether they are equipped to do the job and set the course for a stronger public safety system in Hennepin County.

Running an office this size means handling the cases that make the news and the tens of thousands that do not, managing teams of prosecutors, coordinating with law enforcement and community partners, and making resource decisions that affect safety in every neighborhood.

We are building our campaign on a core conviction: that everyone in Hennepin County deserves to be safe, to receive equal justice, and to be treated with dignity, no matter who they are.

As the next County Attorney, my approach to public safety will prioritize strategic enforcement and proven prevention and intervention strategies. That means focusing on repeat and violent offenders and directing our limited public safety resources to the most pressing issues and where they are needed most. It means being data-driven about preventing crime and working with community partners on intervention strategies that actually work. And as a prosecutor, it means balancing compassion with a willingness to ensure the appropriate consequence, in the appropriate case, for every person.

Effective public safety work does not happen alone. It requires strong partnerships. Collaboration has been a cornerstone of my career and this campaign. I will treat law enforcement, educators, faith leaders, mayors, and community leaders as equal partners. In my first 100 days, I will create a Hennepin County Crime Victims' Bill of Rights and convene victim advocacy groups to expand access to the office and improve responses to domestic and sexual violence.

Hennepin County residents deserve a county attorney who has already proven they can do this job, not one hoping to learn while in office. That is what is on the ballot August 11, and that is why I am asking for your support.

Rep. Angie Craig (MN02) and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan used their final one-on-one debate to sharpen the choice confronting DFL primary voters.

Craig presented herself as the battle-tested candidate who can compete across Minnesota, attract swing voters and withstand the attacks Republicans are preparing for the general election. Flanagan presented herself as the candidate capable of energizing the Democratic base, offering a clearer break from corporate influence and mounting a more forceful opposition to the Trump administration.

But the debate also underscored a reality neither campaign has much incentive to acknowledge before the August 11 primary – neither candidate’s political coalition will be enough by itself in November.

The eventual nominee will need the candidate she just defeated – the voters, volunteers, donors and political strengths of the candidate she just spent months criticizing. She will also need them quickly as Republicans will not offer Democrats a cooling-off period in which to mend their divisions.

Whether Craig or Flanagan wins on August 11, the nominee’s most urgent assignment will be uniting their coalitions towards the singular goal of keeping Minnesota’s Senate seat in Democratic hands.

Debate Recap

The candidates’ final one-on-one debate featured familiar disagreements over immigration, corporate PAC money, fraud and electability. It also reflected the increasingly personal tone of the primary.

Craig attacked Flanagan over fraud that occurred during the Walz administration, arguing that she is uniquely vulnerable to Republicans attacks on the state’s fraud scandals.

Flanagan countered that Craig was repeating Republican talking points. She again criticized Craig’s votes with Republicans and questioned whether a candidate supported by corporate PACs could credibly promise to challenge entrenched interests in Washington.

Those attacks, which grew heated at times, also revealed something larger than personal animosity – Craig and Flanagan have assembled different—but equally important—pieces of the broader DFL coalition.

The Craig Contribution

Craig’s strongest argument is not simply that she is more moderate. It is that she has repeatedly won difficult elections.

Craig’s congressional district includes the kinds of suburban, exurban and small-city communities where Democrats must remain competitive if they want to keep Minnesota blue. She has survived expensive Republican campaigns, built a record of crossover appeal and demonstrated an ability to speak to voters who do not identify with the Democratic Party’s activist base.

That experience matters.

Minnesota remains a blue-leaning state, but it is not a state Democrats can take for granted. Republicans will undoubtedly make fraud and dissatisfaction with government oversight cornerstones of their campaign. The DFL nominee must be able to answer those attacks directly rather than dismiss them as partisan distractions. Craig is right that Democrats must answer difficult questions about government performance and win voters who are not ideologically aligned with the DFL.

If Flanagan wins, she cannot respond by simply asking Craig’s supporters to fall in line.

Flanagan should borrow Craig’s willingness to confront questions about accountability and adopt Craig’s persistent focus on electability—not as a retreat from progressive values, but as a reminder that governing requires winning voters who are not already committed Democrats.

The Flanagan Contribution

Flanagan’s strongest asset is different. She has cultivated enthusiasm among progressive activists and communities that want a Democrat willing to draw sharper contrasts with Republicans, corporate power and the Trump administration.

That energy cannot be treated as expendable.

Appealing to persuadable voters will be paramount, but persuasion alone will not win the general election. Democrats will also need strong turnout from young voters, progressives, immigrants, organized labor, BIPOC communities, and other voters deeply alarmed by the Trump administration’s policies. Flanagan is right that Democrats need an energized base and a clearer argument about who holds power, whose interests the government serves and what is at stake under Trump.

If Craig wins, she cannot respond by simply asking Flanagan’s supporters to fall in line.

She will need to demonstrate that she understands why many of Flanagan’s supporters are dissatisfied with the party’s caution and compromises. That means offering more than a generic unity message. Craig should elevate Flanagan and her leading supporters, strengthen her language on protecting immigrants and civil liberties, and show that bipartisan dealmaking will not come at the expense of confronting Trump.

Turning Competition into Cohesion

The eventual DFL nominee will have little time to transform a divisive primary battle into a unified general-election campaign. Republicans will immediately begin repurposing every criticism Craig and Flanagan leveled against each other.

That makes the winner’s election-night speech the first general election test. She should do more than praise her opponent and promise party unity. She should acknowledge why so many DFL voters supported the losing candidate and make clear that those voters—and their priorities—will retain a meaningful voice.

Within days of the primary, Craig and Flanagan should appear together at an event focused on shared priorities such as lowering costs, reversing Medicaid cuts, protecting reproductive freedom and confronting the Trump administration. Importantly, cohesion must extend beyond a unity rally – it should be reflected in the nominee’s message, personnel, surrogate operation and travel schedule.

The goal should not be to pretend the primary’s differences were meaningless. It should be to demonstrate that the competition produced a stronger nominee—one capable of combining Craig’s crossover appeal with Flanagan’s grassroots energy.

Real unity is reciprocal: the loser asks her supporters to accept the nominee, and the nominee proves that their participation still matters. Only one candidate can win the primary, but the DFL cannot afford to lose the other candidate’s coalition with it.

Bottom Line

The primary will answer which candidate Minnesota Democrats prefer. It will not eliminate the political reality each candidate represents. Craig and Flanagan each possess something the other will need in November.

Craig offers experience winning persuadable voters and withstanding the onslaught of millions of dollars in negative Republican ads. Flanagan offers grassroots energy and a sharp sense of urgency about the threats facing Democratic constituencies.

Craig’s coalition demonstrates why persuasion matters. Flanagan’s coalition demonstrates why enthusiasm matters.

If the winner treats the loser’s coalition as defeated rather than essential, the DFL may enter the general election having voluntarily surrendered one of its greatest strengths.

The DFL nominee will need both—not eventually, and not after weeks of hurt feelings and cautious negotiations. She will need them from the moment the primary is called.

If Minnesota Democrats hope to win in 2026, they should resist the temptation to let Republicans dictate the terms of the campaign. The party’s north star must remain affordability through November.

From groceries and housing to health care, energy and child care, too many Minnesotans continue to feel squeezed by costs that are rising faster than their paychecks. And as the war with Iran drags on—creating additional uncertainty around fuel prices, supply chains and the broader economy—Democrats should be talking every day about what they will do to lower costs and provide greater financial security for working families.

That message should be the foundation of every Democratic campaign, whether the candidate is running for city council, the Legislature, Congress or governor. But successful campaigns are rarely built on a single message alone. Candidates also need to recognize the political opportunities their opponents present and incorporate those contrasts into a broader governing narrative.

In that regard, Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidates are offering Democrats three unique opportunities:

• Mike Lindell gives Democrats an opportunity to talk about how political chaos leads to economic instability.

• Kendall Qualls provides an opportunity to define economic opportunity through the lived experiences of working families rather than through abstract economic theory.

• Lisa Demuth invites a debate over competing governing records and which party has actually used power to improve people’s lives.

On the surface, those appear to be three different campaigns. In reality, they are complementary messages that reinforce the same central Democratic argument: government should be focused on making everyday life more affordable, more secure, and more stable (less chaotic).

If Mike Lindell is Nominee - Connect Political Chaos with Economic Instability

Mike Lindell enters the race with enormous name recognition among Republican voters and a political identity built around his close alignment with President Trump, who recently endorsed Lindell’s candidacy. Those attributes may help him in a Republican primary but they also give Democrats a clear general-election contrast.

Against Lindell, Democrats should frame the race as a choice between stability and chaos, competence and controversy, and practical governance versus perpetual political grievance. That contrast should not be treated as separate from affordability – political instability has real economic consequences.

Families planning their monthly budgets need predictable energy prices, stable markets and confidence that their elected leaders are focused on solving problems. Small businesses need certainty. Farmers need reliable export markets. Workers need an economy that is not constantly being disrupted by new political or geopolitical crises.

As the war with Iran continues, voters are likely to become even more attentive to the relationship between international instability and the costs they feel at home. Accordingly, Democrats should make the case that steady leadership is itself an economic issue.

The argument is not simply that Lindell is controversial. It is that Minnesota cannot afford leaders who treat governing as an extension of national partisan combat.

That message can work well beyond the governor’s race. Democratic candidates at every level should present themselves as practical problem-solvers focused on lowering costs, delivering services and giving families greater security—not creating more political noise.

If Kendall Qualls is Nominee - Converse in Kitchen Table Economics over Economic Theory

Kendall Qualls presents Democrats with a different challenge in that he has built much of his political identity around entrepreneurship, educational opportunity, private-sector growth and upward mobility. Democrats should not retreat from that conversation - they should welcome it.

The strongest response is not to argue that economic growth does not matter. It is to argue that growth is incomplete unless ordinary families can feel it in their own lives.

Economic opportunity is not measured only by corporate investment, business formation or tax rates. It is measured by whether a parent can afford child care and still remain in the workforce. Whether a family can buy a first home. Whether a worker’s wages keep pace with rent, food and health care. Whether rural communities have functioning hospitals, reliable infrastructure and access to good jobs.

Rather than allowing Republicans to present affordability as a simple question of reducing taxes or regulations, Democrats should argue that lowering costs requires direct action: more housing, affordable health care, lower prescription-drug prices, stronger public schools, investments in infrastructure and support for workers trying to earn a middle-class life.

Qualls’ messaging around “opportunity” gives Democrats an opening to explain what opportunity actually requires. And frankly, that message should remain central even if Qualls does not become the GOP nominee.

The DFL’s strongest economic argument is not that government can solve every problem. It is that government has a responsibility to ensure economic growth translates into greater economic security for everyone, and especially for the people doing the work.

If Lisa Demuth is Nominee - Contrast Governing Experience & Legislative Records

Lisa Demuth is the GOP candidate who would bring the lengthiest governing résumé. As Speaker of the Minnesota House, she would have to campaign as an experienced public official (insider) rather than as a political outsider.

If Demuth becomes the GOP nominee, Democrats should avoid debating personality and spend as much time and energy as possible comparing records. A race against Demuth should be a referendum on governing priorities.

Which party has taken concrete steps to lower costs? Which party has invested in schools, roads, and public services? Which party has acted to expand paid leave, support workers and improve access to health care? Which party has a credible plan to address housing affordability, child care and the rising cost of everyday necessities?

Democrats should force voters to consider not merely what each party says, but what each party has done when it has legislative power. That creates an opportunity to tie the broader affordability message to specific policy choices. Every vote on education, health care, labor, housing or infrastructure reveals which families a party (and by extension its candidates) is trying to help.

Democrats should argue that their record reflects an effort to reduce the pressures facing working Minnesotans, while the Republican approach too often prioritizes ideological commitments over practical relief.

Bottom Line

Minnesota Republicans will ultimately decide which candidate they believe gives them the best chance to win the governor’s race in November. Regardless of who emerges as the nominee, Democrats must remain vigilantly focused on the issue most likely to shape the election: whether families feel financially secure.

Affordability - from groceries to gas to housing and health care - must be the foundation of any successful DFL campaign. But it cannot be a campaign’s only dimension.

Lindell provides an opportunity to connect political chaos with economic instability. Qualls offers the chance to define economic opportunity from the perspective of working families as opposed to abstract economic theory. Demuth presents an opportunity to compare governing records and policy priorities.

The Republican nominee may determine which contrast receives the greatest emphasis – but the strongest DFL campaigns will incorporate all three: lower costs, stable leadership, and a record of governing that improves people’s everyday lives.

Minnesota’s housing affordability crisis has many drivers: rising interest rates, a persistent supply shortage, and home values that climbed 14% over five years while owner incomes fell 4%. But one cost buried in the mortgage process has begun drawing growing scrutiny of its own: a credit scoring fee that has surged more than 1,500% in four years, with, until recently, very little notice amongst lawmakers and the general public.

The Fair Isaac Corporation, known as FICO, controls roughly 90% of the mortgage credit scoring market. For years, it operated as the only score accepted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed enterprises that underwrite the majority of U.S. mortgages. That arrangement left lenders, and ultimately borrowers, with no alternative.

The result: the cost of pulling a credit report for a mortgage has jumped from $50 to $540 since 2022, driven by a 1,567% increase in FICO’s per-score fees, compounded by additional hikes from the three major credit bureaus.

Why It Matters

For Minnesota’s aspiring first-time buyers, that increase is hitting at the worst time.Over 643,000 Minnesotans are currently spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

A May 2026 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that the Twin Cities region failed to meet all three of its key housing affordability benchmarks for the first time since they were established in 2022. Now, some say these credit check price increases are adding yet another rock to the pile.

FICO’s own investor reports attributed revenue growth to “higher mortgage origination scores unit price,” not increased volume or product improvement. The company’s revenue reached nearly $2 billion in fiscal year 2025, and its stock price has risen from $439 in 2022 to $1,092 as of May 2026.

For borrowers, transparency is limited. Fees are often embedded in closing costs and mortgage disclosures, making it difficult for buyers to identify or contest the charges. With no competing score previously approved for government-backed loans, consumers had no market alternative.

What’s Changing

This started to change in April, when the Federal Housing Finance Agency formally approved VantageScore 4.0 for use with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Federal Housing Administration mortgages, the first time a competing model has been accepted in the government-backed market.

Moreover, earlier this month, a state attorney general subpoenaed FICO for its alleged anticompetitive practices, claiming harm to consumers, including families desiring to buy a home. But polling data suggests there is greater public appetite for even broader accountability. A nationwide survey found 74% of voters support rolling FICO’s fees back to 2022 levels, and 77% support a formal antitrust investigation by the DOJ or FTC.

Bottom Line

What has yet to materialize is requiring FICO to justify its price increases.

While Congressional leaders, and now a state attorney general, have asked for documents and input from FICO, advocates say there is a lingering accountability gap Washington has yet to fully close.

Until that gap is closed, we should continue to expect Congress to push for Congressional hearings and a formal regulatory antitrust review by the FTC or DOJ of FICO’s pricing practices to provide oversight in a market that seemingly lacks transparency.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Minnesota State Senator Matt Klein (DFL-SD53). Klein is running in the DFL primary to represent Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.

Our healthcare system is broken. Sure, it’s been broken for years. But the actions of Donald Trump and RFK Jr. have pushed us over the edge and have left Minnesotans at risk.

In less than two years they have inflicted enduring harm. They ended the tax subsidies that helped make health insurance plans affordable for thousands of Minnesotans, took away Medicaid for 140,000 Minnesotans, and drove rural hospitals into financial free fall, making it even harder for Minnesotans to find the care they need. They are spreading misinformation about vaccines, reducing access to common vaccines that keep us safe, and stopping important research that can help us stay healthy now and into the future.

That puts all of us at risk, particularly as measles cases continue to threaten our children. And they have decimated our international humanitarian work--allowing diseases like Ebola to spread more quickly and placing Americans at risk if these diseases reach our shores.

I’ve held the hand of Minnesotans as they decided between getting the care they needed or going back to work so they could pay their bills. And I’ve seen the impact when patients aren’t taking the medications they’re prescribed because they can’t afford them.

Luckily, unlike Donald Trump or RFK Jr. – I am a doctor. And, I have a prescription to fix our healthcare system.

First, we need to undo Trump and RFK Jr.’s actions. Bring back the ACA tax credits so working Minnesotans can afford insurance. Provide Medicaid to those in need which will help reduce healthcare costs across the board and help keep our rural hospitals open. Trust science again, starting with making vaccines available, bringing back education campaigns about vaccines, and funding research that will keep our communities healthy now and into the future.

Second, we need to finally stand up to drug and insurance companies to bring down costs and make sure Minnesotans have access to the medicine and treatments that they need. We have had some success in Minnesota where we fought insurance companies and were able to bring down drug costs for Minnesotans. In Congress, I will continue this fight to bring down the cost of prescriptions and healthcare and make sure that doctors and patients are making healthcare decisions, not politicians and insurance companies.

Third, we should move toward universal coverage so every Minnesotan can get care when they’re sick and preventive care to keep from getting sick in the first place. It’s good for our people, our society, and our economy. In Congress, I will work to restructure our healthcare system because anything less than an overhaul of the system won’t be enough.

Finally, we just need to make some obvious changes. The actions of ICE in Minnesota this year had a disastrous and potentially long-lasting impact on the health of our immigrant neighbors. We need to get ICE out of our neighborhoods, including our hospitals, so that everyone can safely access the care they need. And, we need to ban assault weapons – something I was proud to support this year in the State Senate. As a doctor at Hennepin Healthcare I saw what these weapons do to a body. It’s time we have a national ban.

Serving this community as a doctor for the last 35 years has been the honor of a lifetime. But with the actions of Donald Trump and RFK Jr., it’s no longer enough to serve patients, we need to fix the system.

In Congress, it will be my top priority to bring down healthcare costs, take on pharmaceutical and insurance companies, overhaul our healthcare system, ensure that ICE stays out of our neighborhoods, and finally pass a national ban on assault weapons.

This is just a start to making sure Minnesotans have what they need to enjoy living in the best state in our nation.

As the Iran War drags on and fallout from President Trump’s tariffs continues, Trump has handed Minnesota Democrats a political opening in rural Minnesota - but that does not mean rural voters will automatically take it.

Minnesota farmers are accustomed to risk.

They cannot control the weather. They cannot determine the price of corn in Chicago or the size of Brazil’s soybean crop. They cannot prevent disease outbreaks, equipment failures or droughts. However, the newest pressures bearing down on Minnesota agriculture are not uncontrollable acts of nature – they are the consequences of deliberate decisions made in Washington.

Trump’s tariffs have disrupted Minnesota agriculture’s most important export markets while the Iran War has simultaneously increased the price of fuel and fertilizer—the basic inputs farmers need to produce and transport a crop. The result is a punishing two-sided squeeze where farmers are receiving less dependable prices for what they sell AND paying more for what they need to buy.

For Minnesota Democrats, that reality presents both a responsibility and an opportunity: make clear that the party is prepared to deliver something farmers have not received from Washington—economic stability.

The Revenue Side of Farmers’ Equation

Minnesota agriculture revenue is particularly vulnerable to global disruption because it is one of the country’s leading agricultural-export states.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture estimates that Minnesota exports approximately $9.2 billion in agricultural products each year, including soybeans, corn, feed and pork; with its largest markets being China, Mexico, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Soybeans are especially important. The Minnesota Soybean Growers Association estimates that soybean exports generate approximately $2 billion annually and that roughly one out of every four rows of Minnesota soybeans is sold to China. That relationship became a liability when China retaliated against Trump’s tariffs.

In response to Trump’s tariffs, China imposed new duties of 10% to 15% on several American agricultural products in 2025, including soybeans, corn, dairy and beef. For part of the year, China even stopped buying American soybeans altogether as negotiations deteriorated. The national consequences were severe. USDA reports that American agricultural exports to China declined 66% in 2025, falling to approximately $8.4 billion. China dropped from the country’s five largest agricultural export markets, driven in significant part by reciprocal tariffs and reduced soybean purchases.

Minnesota farmers felt that disruption immediately.

Soybeans and corn do not disappear when an export contract disappears. They sit in grain bins, require storage and put downward pressure on local prices as farmers compete for fewer buyers.

The Cost Side of Farmers’ Equation

The trade war, and its impact on farming revenue, would be damaging on its own but it arrived just as another crisis was increasing the cost of producing a crop - the Iran War.

The war with Iran disrupted energy and fertilizer flows through the Persian Gulf. Reuters estimated that the initial conflict cut access to approximately 17% of global natural-gas supply and more than 30% of global nitrogen-fertilizer supply. That matters because natural gas is a central input in nitrogen-fertilizer manufacturing.

The Strait of Hormuz is also a major transportation route for oil, liquefied natural gas and fertilizer. This spring, the price of Urea, one of the most widely used nitrogen-based fertilizers in the world, increased from approximately $455 per ton before the war to nearly $700 per ton—an increase of more than 50%. Moreover, national diesel prices rose from approximately $3.81 per gallon when the conflict began to roughly $5.35.

Minnesota farmers cannot simply decide not to purchase those products.

Corn requires nitrogen. Tractors require diesel. Grain must be dried, stored and transported. When input prices spike, farmers must either absorb the increase, reduce production or take on more operating debt.

The Democratic Alternative

Democrats must not lecture farmers that they were foolish to support Trump. They should tell farmers that Washington owes them more than another cycle of disruption and reimbursement.

That message can appeal beyond traditional Democratic voters. Many farmers are fiscally conservative precisely because they value independence. They would rather earn income through sales than rely upon a federal program devised after politicians damaged their market.

Farming is a business. Farmers need customers, predictable costs, functioning infrastructure and enough confidence to make multiyear investments. The Democratic argument should begin there.

Democrats should offer a trade and agriculture platform built around four commitments.

1. Markets over bailouts – Emergency assistance should remain available, but the primary objective must be preserving and expanding commercial demand.

2. Strategic and clear trade enforcement – Tariffs should target specific abuses, include measurable objectives and be coordinated with allies whenever possible. Farmers should know what success looks like and how long the policy is expected to last.

3. More customers/less dependence – USDA export-promotion programs should aggressively develop markets in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and India so that American agriculture is not overly dependent on any single buyer.

4. Increase domestic demand – Permanent year-round E15, expanded biodiesel, domestic soybean crushing and biomanufacturing can create customers closer to the farm. This is not free-trade absolutism. It is recognition that access to markets is itself a form of agricultural security.

Farmers will listen when Democrats demonstrate that they understand commodity markets, input costs, export dependence, operating credit and the economics of an acre of corn. They will listen even more closely when Democrats offer solutions that increase their independence rather than deepen reliance on Washington.

Bottom Line

Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war have created real hardship in Minnesota farm country.

Democrats should hold him accountable. But they should not stop there.

The durable political opportunity is to offer a new rural bargain: dependable markets instead of tariff roulette, domestic demand instead of bailout dependence, competition instead of corporate concentration and resilience instead of exposure to the next global crisis.

Democrats must make the choice clear: Republicans are asking farmers to absorb the cost of chaos while Democrats have a plan to stabilize markets and lower input vulnerability so that farmers have a fair chance to make money from the crops they produce.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Minnesota State Representative Kaela Berg (DFL-55B). Berg is running in the DFL primary to represent Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.

Washington has left working people behind. Not just in policy, but in language, in candidates, in basic respect for the reality of working-class life. In 2024, we paid the price. Party leaders told voters the economy was fine — when we knew it wasn’t. They treated workers like we were too unsophisticated to understand our own circumstances.

The wealth gap between the top 1% and everyone else has widened for years. The ultra-wealthy keep getting richer while the rest of us grind through rising gas prices, medical bills, and grocery costs. Working people know things are bad. We’ve been sounding the alarm.

But change won’t happen if the politicians who are supposed to fight for us don’t know how bad it is themselves. Just 3% of Congress comes from the working class. Just 3% knows how to stretch a paycheck to the last dollar, cut a pill in half to make a prescription last, or do the math in your head at the grocery store because you can’t afford to be wrong.

How can we expect Congress to fix this economy if the people writing the laws have never lived it?

That’s why I’m running. I’ve been a union flight attendant for over twenty years. I’m a labor leader and a Minnesota state representative. And even as a legislator, I still live paycheck to paycheck.

That is one of my greatest strengths. When someone in my community tells me they’re struggling, I don’t have to imagine it. I live it too.

And I’ve delivered results. I authored and passed the ban on captive audience meetings, shutting down one of the oldest union-busting tactics on the books. My gun violence prevention law was the last one we passed in Minnesota — banning binary triggers and making straw purchases a felony. And after fighting for my own son in a broken education system, I put a mental health professional in every public school in the state.

That’s what happens when you send a working-class person, and a labor leader, into government. We don’t just talk about the issues our communities are begging us to fix — we deliver, because we’re building a future for our communities, our kids, and our families.

And there’s no better place to find working-class candidates than the labor movement. We are the backbone of some of the most organized, most politically active movements in this country. We’ve stood on picket lines. We’ve shut down airports and hospitals to demand what we’re owed. When an aircraft crashed and flipped upside down in Toronto in 2025, it was highly trained flight attendants who evacuated 80 people and got every single one of them out alive. We know how to move fast in a crisis — because our jobs require it every day.

There’s real precedent for candidates like me. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a bartender and waitress before she ran for Congress on a shoestring budget and beat a ten-term incumbent. She redrew the boundaries of what the Democratic Party was willing to fight for. Her pro-worker, anti-billionaire message filled arenas on the Fighting Oligarchy Tour with Bernie Sanders, reaching working people across ideological lines who are hungry for someone willing to tell the truth about power.

Mary Peltola won Alaska by speaking directly to working people who depend on the land and sea to survive. Now she’s running for Senate to keep fighting for her community, for the fisheries, and for the workers who keep them running.

AOC and Peltola prove that working-class candidates don’t just belong in these seats — we win in them, and we change what’s possible once we’re there. Not because we studied the working class from a distance, but because we live it — on the picket line, behind the beverage cart, on the fishing boat, and at the kitchen table doing the math on a bill that’s due before the paycheck comes in.

Minnesota’s Second District deserves a member of Congress who has had to fight for their livelihood, and who will bring that same fight to Washington. I’m someone who’s lived it, who’s organized alongside it, and who knows exactly what’s at stake if we get this wrong again.

Working people built this country. Now it’s time for us to lead in Congress.

Politics often rewards promises about what government will do next. But sometimes the better political argument is reminding voters what has quietly worked for generations.

This November, Minnesotans will vote on a constitutional amendment modernizing the state’s Permanent School Fund—a proposal that has largely flown under the political radar despite affecting every public school district in the state.

At first glance, the referendum appears highly technical. It asks voters whether Minnesota should modernize how earnings from the state’s $2.3 billion Permanent School Fund are distributed to public schools by adopting a contemporary “total return” investment model rather than relying primarily on interest and dividends.

But hidden beneath the constitutional language is one of Minnesota’s most remarkable—and least appreciated—stories.

For more than a century and a half, Minnesota has taken wealth generated from its forests, minerals and public lands, invested it instead of spending it, and used those investments to help educate generations of Minnesota children.

That isn’t just smart public finance. It’s Minnesota’s social compact in action.

And politically, it gives Democrats an opportunity to tell a story they too often leave untold: one where miners, loggers, educators, conservationists and parents are all part of the same success story.

Minnesota’s Original Investment in Its Future

When Minnesota first became a state in 1858, Congress granted the new state millions of acres of land to support public education. Rather than treating those lands as assets to be quickly sold off, Minnesota built something far more enduring.

School trust lands generated revenue through timber harvesting, iron ore mining, taconite production, mineral leases and other resource development. In turn, instead of immediately spending those proceeds, the state deposited them into a permanent trust whose principal could not be spent. The result was an education endowment that continues to grow more than 150 years later.

It is difficult to overstate how forward-thinking that decision was. Minnesota effectively decided that today’s natural resources should help educate tomorrow’s children.

Generation after generation has benefited from that decision.

The Industries That Built the Permanent School Fund

The Permanent School Fund did not materialize through financial engineering – it was built by Minnesota workers and industries. Historically, no industries have contributed more to the trust than Minnesota’s mining and forestry sectors; namely - iron ore, taconite, and timber, alongside other state-land leases.

Too often, these industries are discussed almost exclusively in terms of employment statistics, environmental permitting or regional politics. Rarely are they discussed in the terms of education policy but perhaps they should be.

Every mining royalty deposited into the trust, timber sale conducted on school trust lands, and lease signed on behalf of Minnesota students, became another investment in Minnesota classrooms. That reality deserves far greater recognition than it receives today.

And to be clear, recognizing and appreciating those contributions is not the same as arguing that every mining proposal should be immediately approved or that every environmental concern dismissed entirely. Minnesota can (and must) simultaneously maintain rigorous environmental standards while acknowledging that responsibly managed natural-resource industries have been extraordinary partners in financing public education.

Those ideas are not contradictory. In fact, the Permanent School Fund has demonstrated that they have worked together for generations.

Why a Constitutional Referendum is Needed

In today’s political environment, constitutional amendments often become ideological battlegrounds. This proposal is refreshingly different.

The amendment emerged from years of study by experts, legislators and investment professionals who concluded that the state’s investment framework should better reflect modern portfolio management. The legislation was led by State Senator Mary Kunesh (DFL-New Brighton) in the Senate and State Representative Spencer Igo (R-Wabana) in the House. Ultimately, the state legislature passed the constitutional referendum proposal and placed the question before voters with bipartisan support.

The constitutional amendment itself is less about changing the purpose of the fund than updating how it operates.

When Minnesota originally established the distribution formula, investment portfolios generated much of their returns through interest payments and stock dividends. But today’s markets work differently because a much larger share of long-term investment growth comes through appreciation in asset values rather than dividend income alone.

Under the current constitutional language, schools cannot fully benefit from that modern investment reality. As a result, the fund has grown dramatically while annual distributions have not always kept pace with its long-term performance. The proposed amendment would address that mismatch by allowing distributions based on a fixed percentage of the fund’s average market value—a model already used by many university endowments and large public trusts.

In short, the constitutional amendment doesn’t spend more of the trust – it spends the trust more strategically. The principal, as well as future generations of students, remain protected because schools simply receive a more stable and sustainable share of the investment returns that the fund is already generating.

Good public policy sometimes means creating something new. Other times, it means updating yesterday’s rules to reflect today’s realities. The Permanent School Fund constitutional amendment is a fantastic example of the latter.

The Political Opportunity Democrats Shouldn’t Waste

There is also a broader political lesson and opportunity for Democrats.

For years, Republicans have enjoyed a messaging advantage when conversations turn to mining, forestry and natural-resource development. Democrats have too frequently responded defensively—or avoided the conversation altogether.

Reforming the Permanent School Fund offers a different approach.Instead of framing natural-resource industries solely through the lens of permitting fights or environmental disputes, Democrats can tell a much richer story.

They can proudly say that Minnesota’s miners, loggers, heavy-equipment operators, engineers and countless other workers have helped finance public education for generations. They can argue that respecting and valuing those industries is entirely consistent with supporting both conservation and public education.

After all, the Permanent School Fund itself is built upon exactly that balance: responsibly managing public resources to preserve them and their value for future generations.

That message resonates far beyond northern Minnesota and the Iron Range - it speaks to organized Labor, educators, and suburban parents alike. It also speaks to rural communities that sometimes question whether state leaders and fellow Minnesotans truly appreciate the economic contributions they make to the rest of state

Perhaps most importantly, it points toward the future.

As Minnesota debates critical minerals needed for batteries, electric vehicles, housing materials, and advanced manufacturing, the state has an opportunity to write the next chapter of this story. Today’s responsible mineral and forestry development could become tomorrow’s classroom funding just as iron ore, taconite, and timber have done for previous generations.

That story is a far more compelling vision than simply arguing about individual projects one permit at a time.

Bottom Line

The Permanent School Fund reminds us that Minnesota has never had to choose between investing in education and valuing the industries that make those investments possible.

For more than 150 years, the state has transformed natural-resource wealth into lasting public opportunity—not by spending it all at once, but by managing natural assets wisely, investing the finances carefully, and sharing the returns across geography and generations.

This November’s constitutional amendment doesn’t change that mission – it modernizes it.

And in doing so, it gives Democrats an opportunity to reclaim a story that has always belonged to Minnesota: that miners and teachers, loggers and students, conservation and economic development are not opposing forces but rather partners in a uniquely Minnesotan social compact. A compact that has quietly helped educate millions of children and, if voters approve this amendment, will continue doing so for generations to come.

Democrats should proudly connect with that story and own that legacy this November.

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham.

Sometimes you don’t realize how special something is until you have the opportunity to see it through someone else’s eyes.

Earlier this month, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) brought its 30th Constitutional Convention to Minneapolis. Every five years, delegates from across the country gather to chart the future of America’s Labor Movement. This year, thousands of union members, leaders and activists came to Minnesota.

What they found here was something remarkable. The speeches and presentations surrounding the convention often focused on Minnesota’s response to Operation Metro Surge and the wave of federal immigration enforcement actions that traumatized families and communities across our state. Those stories mattered, and they deserved attention.

When immigrant workers and their families came under attack, Minnesota’s Labor Movement stood up. Union members joined faith leaders, community organizations and neighbors in defending our communities. We spoke out and took action because solidarity isn’t simply a word. It is our movement’s guiding principle. When we say an injury to one is an injury to all, we mean it.

However, our historic resistance to Metro Surge was part of something even larger and something we communicated to convention delegates. The reason Minnesota workers responded so quickly and effectively is because we have spent years building something stronger than a moment. We have spent years building relationships, coalitions, and a culture of solidarity that reaches across job, race, religious, and regional and backgrounds.

The delegates who came to Minneapolis did not just see resistance. They saw what we collectively built and continue to build. They saw a state where workers organized for years to win universal paid family and medical leave, earned sick and safe time, expanded union rights and protections, and some of the strongest labor laws in the nation. They saw unions organizing new workplaces and growing membership. They saw new construction projects across the state and apprenticeship programs preparing the next generation of skilled tradespeople. They saw public and private sector workers fighting together for stronger communities.

They saw a Labor Movement that understands economic, social and racial justice are inseparable. That’s why the AFL-CIO awarded Minnesota’s Labor Movement the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award during the convention. The award recognized our collective response to attacks on immigrant workers and our commitment to defending human dignity. While we are honored by the recognition, the truth is that Minnesota union members were simply living our values.

The convention also offered a reminder that Minnesota’s successes didn’t happen by accident. Every gain working Minnesotans won is because we organized, voted, negotiated, and stood together.

Just like our state was ready to resist when ICE came to town, we must prepare for the very real possibility the Trump administration will use the same tactics to disrupt our election this November. This administration didn’t care whether they detained US citizens in ICE raids, so there’s no reason to believe they won’t try to prevent us from exercising our fundamental right to vote. Whatever happens, know that Minnesota’s Labor Movement will be there every step of the way – standing in solidarity to protect our Democracy.

Across the country, workers are demanding a greater voice on the job and a fairer share of the wealth we create. Here in Minnesota, we have an opportunity to continue leading by example. That means organizing more workers into unions, electing leaders who stand with us, and continuing to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.

For one week in June, all eyes were on Minnesota. What visitors saw was not perfection. They saw a state still grappling with challenges. But they also saw something many people thought had become a thing of the past: people choosing solidarity over fear, community over division and hope over cynicism. That is Minnesota’s Labor Movement at its best. I hope that is what America remembers.

The first televised debate between Angie Craig and Peggy Flanagan was ostensibly about who should represent Minnesota in the United States Senate. But in reality, it was about something much bigger.

For much of the evening, viewers were not simply watching two candidates debate policy. They were watching two competing visions for the future of the Democratic Party compete for primacy.

Should Democrats focus on persuasion and coalition-building? Or should they focus on energizing their base and drawing sharper ideological contrasts? Should the party prioritize electability and pragmatism? Or should it prioritize conviction and movement politics?

Neither Craig nor Flanagan would likely frame the choice in those exact terms. But those questions hovered over nearly every exchange.

The debate ultimately revealed a Democratic Party that is still wrestling with its identity in the Trump era.

The “Pragmatic/Electability” Case

Throughout the debate, Craig consistently returned to one central theme: Democrats need candidates who can win difficult elections. It is not a surprising argument coming from a congresswoman who has repeatedly won one of the most competitive districts in the country.

Craig’s political identity (and success) has been built around the idea that Democratic success depends on expanding the coalition rather than narrowing it. Her victories in suburban and swing territory have reinforced the belief that voters reward candidates who demonstrate independence and a willingness to occasionally break with their party.

That perspective was evident in her answers on immigration, governance, and accountability.

Even when discussing her controversial vote for the Laken Riley Act, Craig framed her position through the lens of governing rather than ideology. She acknowledged regret over the vote but emphasized that leaders must be willing to make difficult decisions and adjust when circumstances change.

For Craig supporters, that answer reflected maturity and humility. For critics, it reflected inconsistency and opportunism. Either way, it highlighted the governing philosophy she brought to the debate stage.

Craig’s argument is straightforward: Democrats cannot accomplish progressive goals if they lose elections. Winning difficult races matters. Building broader coalitions matters. Appealing to voters beyond the party’s most engaged activists matters.

The “Progressive/Energizing” Case

Flanagan presented a different vision.

Her campaign has been built around the idea that Democrats should not be afraid to stand firmly on their values and reject compromise, particularly when confronting Trump administration policies.

Throughout the debate, Flanagan repeatedly returned to Craig’s vote for the Laken Riley Act. For her campaign, the vote represents more than a policy disagreement. It symbolizes a broader concern that Democrats too often compromise on issues that are central to their values.

Flanagan argued that voters are looking for leaders willing to draw clear distinctions rather than split the difference.

That perspective has gained traction nationally as many Democrats question whether moderation and compromise remain effective political strategies in an increasingly polarized environment.

For Flanagan, enthusiasm matters. Grassroots energy matters. Mobilizing voters who feel passionately about issues like immigration, reproductive rights, labor rights, and social justice matters.

Her campaign reflects the belief that Democrats should inspire and energize voters rather than simply persuade them.

Why Both Arguments Have Merit

One of the most interesting aspects of the debate was that neither candidate’s core argument is obviously wrong. Recent election history provides evidence for both positions.

Progressive enthusiasm has played a major role in Democratic victories across the country. Grassroots organizing, issue advocacy, and movement politics have helped drive turnout and shape public opinion.

At the same time, Democrats have also succeeded by winning over moderates, independents, and suburban voters who may not align perfectly with the party’s activist wing.

The reality is that successful statewide Democratic candidates typically require both.

The challenge is determining which component deserves greater emphasis in a particular political moment. That is ultimately the question Minnesota Democrats must answer in this primary.

What Minnesota Democrats Must Decide

The Craig-Flanagan debate revealed that this race is not simply a contest between two accomplished public servants.

It has become a referendum on political strategy:

• Do voters want a candidate whose strongest credential is repeatedly winning competitive races?

• Or do they want a candidate whose strongest credential is energizing the Democratic coalition and articulating progressive values?

Those are not mutually exclusive qualities, but the debate highlighted where each candidate places their emphasis.

Craig believes Democrats win by persuading more people. Flanagan believes Democrats win by energizing more people.

The distinction may sound subtle, but it carries significant implications for how the party campaigns, governs, and prioritizes issues.

Bottom Line

The most important takeaway from the debate wasn’t who landed the strongest attack or delivered the sharpest soundbite. It was the reminder that Minnesota Democrats are participating in a conversation taking place throughout the country.

The debate exposed a party still searching for the right balance between pragmatism and principle, persuasion and mobilization, coalition-building and movement politics.

Craig and Flanagan offered different answers to that challenge.

Minnesota Democratic primary voters will have to decide which vision they believe is best suited for the road ahead.

But regardless of who wins, the underlying questions lingering throughout the debate are likely to remain central to Democratic politics long after the primary is over.