ST. PAUL (Legal Newsline) - Rising crime could be the downfall of Attorney General Keith Ellison as he seeks a second term and faces a tough-on-crime opponent in November, according to a conservative political observer.
“Crime is really the issue that most voters are focused on when they think about the Attorney General's race,” said John Hinderaker, executive board member of the Freedom Club, a statewide organization of conservative political donors.
Hinderaker was reacting to a poll conducted Sept. 14 by Alpha News/Trafalgar Group showing Democrat incumbent Ellison trailing political newcomer Jim Schulz, a Republican whose platform on battling crime stands in contrast to Ellison's record.
Schulz leads Ellison by 3.6 points, 49.3% to 45.7% with 4.9% of undecided voters, according to an Alpha News report.
“I don't think it's a surprise,” Hinderaker said.
“Ellison was thought to be vulnerable four years ago. He's got a very radical history and he had some domestic violence incidents that came out during the campaign. The year 2018 turned out to be a very poor year for Republicans in Minnesota, so Ellison won by four or five points. It wasn't particularly close but it wasn't a runaway either. He remains vulnerable.”
When he was a Congressman representing Minnesota's 5th District for six terms, Ellison was tainted by an alleged incident of domestic abuse lodged by a former girlfriend.
NPR reported that a video of the alleged incident was posted on Facebook in 2018 by the woman's son, however Ellison denied the accusation was true.
A former deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ellison stepped down from that prominent role when he won the election for Minnesota’s Attorney General.
In his first term, Ellison has doggedly pursued climate change litigation.
As previously reported in Legal Newsline, Ellison sued ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute alleging the trio ran a decades-long campaign of denial and disinformation about the existence of climate change and their products’ role in causing it.
The state is represented by the private law firm Sher Edling with the support of "special assistant attorneys general" - funded by billionaire Mike Bloomberg - who were placed in Ellison’s office one year before suit was filed.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has yet to rule on allegations that Ellison's office improperly concealed communications with out-of-state climate activists and other AG offices, in a lawsuit that says the information should have been made public.
Hinderaker, however, doesn't see controversy over climate litigation as a prominent campaign issue.
“Keith Ellison is in the eyes of many Minnesotans essentially anti-law enforcement," Hinderaker said. "There are two people during his four years as attorney general that he's thrown the book at, and those two people were Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter, two police officers. With crime in Minnesota at very high levels, we are now actually a high crime state in the current FBI data.”
Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years of incarceration over the death of George Floyd, while Potter was sentenced to two years in prison over the death of Daunte Wright.
“There's not a lot of patience for public officials who seem to be soft on crime,” Hinderaker added. “That's the reason why Ellison finds himself in trouble. Ellison remains vulnerable. I think Jim Schultz is a good credible candidate. So, I'm expecting a very tight race.”
The Alpha News/Trafalgar Group poll also showed the governor's race tightening, with Democrat incumbent Gov. Tim Walz narrowly leading Republican challenger Dr. Scott Jensen by under 3 points, 47.7% to 45%.
"Republicans could be on the verge of winning their first statewide race since 2006, with the attorney general’s race representing the best opportunity for a GOP pickup...," the Alpha News report states.