Are voters meh on Operation Metro Surge? Tax cuts under Klobuchar? Thoughts on the governor debates

This post about recent governor debates featuring Amy Klobuchar and Lisa Demuth comes from our Capitol Conversations newsletter. Sign up here to get Matthew Blake’s takes on the latest Minnesota state government news, delivered to your inbox weekly.

Dear Minnesotans,

If Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth is elected governor, a reason could be the two governor debates that happened this week, one hosted by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Monday morning, the other by FOX 9/Gray Media Wednesday night.

Not because Demuth outshone Sen. Amy Klobuchar in her answers – both candidates’ replies were consistent with positions they’ve already staked. But because Demuth got more favorable questions.

The Minnesota Chamber did an excellent job posing questions of interest to the businesses that  are a part of the Minnesota Chamber. Someone with no prior knowledge of state politics might leave that debate thinking that a 10-month-old Paid Family and Medical Leave program, in which employers and employees are both responsible for chipping into a fund, is the biggest problem facing the state. 

The FOX 9 moderators provided more breadth, including what the state government can do to improve access to home ownership, how the state could help patients confront coverage restrictions put in by health insurers, and the government’s role in helping to pay for childcare. 

Still, not a single question in either of the governor debates touched on either Operation Metro Surge or guns, the DFL’s priority issues heading into the 2026 legislative session. 

Related from Oct. 8: An utterly dreary newsletter about governor debates over soaring healthcare costs

Ironically, fraud – a topic that, unlike guns and ICE, the Legislature did address in multiple ways – was the first subject discussed at both governor debates. The very first words of the FOX debate were Demuth referencing Joe Thompson’s questionable claim that $9 billion in federal and state taxpayer money went to fraudsters. 

Klobuchar did not mention guns and immigration enforcement in the first debate, but did add it to a couple of her answers in the second. 

She said Demuth blocked a ban on assault weapons and did not even allow a vote on it on the House floor. (Demuth responded that she had allowed a House floor vote on it. In fact, there were House floor votes taken, but Demuth never called the bill. That meant DFLers suspended the rules to call the bill, a maneuver that means two-thirds of lawmakers must support the underlying legislation for it to pass. A package that included the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines failed to pass on a 67-67 party line vote.) 

And Klobuchar blurted out, “You literally said Kristi Noem showed steady leadership when 3,000 ICE agents descended” onto the Twin Cities Metro area, referencing the since ousted Homeland Security secretary. 

Demuth did not respond to that one. In an interview in February, she  told me that she considered Operation Metro Surge a success in making Minnesota safer. 

Wait, I have a few more thoughts on the FOX debate

• Demuth repeated a campaign mantra that she will “fire all agency commissioners” to help stop fraud. 

In fact, agency commissioners are political appointees invariably replaced in new administrations, especially a Republican administration replacing a DFL one. Even if Gov. Tim Walz had run the most sparkling state bureaucracy in Minnesota history, it would be the most stunning man bites dog political story ever if Demuth didn’t fire all agency commissioners.

• I almost fell off my sagging couch when Demuth said, “Healthcare is a big topic and you will find my plan on my website.”

As recently as Tuesday morning, Demuth did not have a plan on her website. Her campaign did not answer my question of when it was put up there, but it is up there. 

The plan first focuses on who will not get health care, like people on public assistance who  are not “truly needy” and undocumented immigrants. Otherwise, Demuth has general statements like, “Matching patients needs to affordable insurance plans that make sense.”

This is not necessarily a criticism. As my piece on Klobuchar this week notes, the candidates have genuinely competing visions when it comes to making life more affordable. Klobuchar focuses on government tools to improve housing supply and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Demuth focuses on tax cuts, where she does have specific ideas. 

• But Klobuchar also expressed an appetite for tax cuts, including ending what is left of the state tax on social security.

Klobuchar has also repeatedly warned of a looming budget deficit. So unless her “top-to-bottom audit of state government” produces instant savings, the next biennial budget may include service cuts, whomever is elected governor. 

• Klobuchar repeatedly used the phrase “afford your life.” That is the longtime mantra of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is in a tight reelection race. (Much more on Ellison and this race from me next week.)

Thoughts on the governor’s race and what you would like to see from the next governor of Minnesota? Email me at mblake@minnpost.com.

Reaction to my Joe Thompson interview

ICYMI, I interviewed Joe Thompson as well as Daniel Bobier, federal prosecutors who worked on the Feeding Our Future and Medicaid fraud prosecutions. I really appreciate the feedback on this piece. And thank you to Evan Ramstad who thoroughly went through the video of my interview of Thompson at the MinnPost Festival in a Star Tribune column. 

Related: Former federal prosecutor Joe Thompson and the unsatisfying reckoning with social services fraud

I did want to say more about the clarification we ran on the piece. I quoted a Kayseh Magan Minnesota Reformer column without first speaking with Magan, and he reached out to me making the point that I associated his views with a more sweeping assertion Thompson made. 

Magan was making the point in said column that the close trust inherent in clan ties “creates a vast opening for fraudsters” to exploit. Consequently, he writes, while many Somalis were implicated in fraud schemes, many unwitting Somalis were also victims of fraud. 

I do want to report and write more about why so many fraud defendants are Somalis. But I am still wrestling with how to do this in a way that helps Minnesotans understand what’s been happening at a time when the most famous Somali politician in America is subject to FBI raids and Demuth and other politicians warn of “Somali gangs.” 

Sincerely,

Matthew Blake 

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