In case you didn't hear me earlier, there's just 17 days before Election Day, and with the nice fall weather, we suspect a high level of doorknocking this weekend, an activity some of this week's political panelists have engaged in during their lifetimes.

Democrats up first tonight Sara Lopez, party activist and policy director at Unidos Minnesota.

Abou Amara, former legislative staffer turned attorney.

Republicans on the couch Fritz Knaak, former state senator, now an attorney.

Always, most always a Republican loyalist.

Always, always.

Always, okay.

And Annette Meeks is a former congressional staffer, lieutenant governor candidate who now heads the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota.

Senator, I've been interested in the the debate over divided government at the state level.

I saw that Gene Pelowski, the retiring DFL longtime server down in southeast Minnesota, says he's a Democrat, said divided government’ll be good.

Laurie Sturdevant got a very interesting article today in the paper saying divided government's okay, except nothing gets done.

Well, it's great if you completely agree with everything that the parties that are in control are doing.

If, on the other hand, and keep in mind one thing we've discovered is it takes the smallest, thinnest of majorities to really, really, engage in some radical behavior.

And I think at a time years ago when, when you saw large majorities of one party, they tended to be a little bit more reflective of the state as a whole.

You'd have a certain rural element.

In fact, the rural element ran the Senate when I was there.

And so there was a tendency to try to reach for the middle or there was a value in reaching for the middle.

That's not there.

And so I think the thinking is, is that we get divided government people are generally okay with it.

If you get some kind of divided government, you get a little bit more restraint in what comes out.

Yeah, I think that might have been true 20 or 30 years ago.

I don't think that's true today.

I think part of it is the composition of who gets into our state legislature.

It used to be Democrats often win in the rural areas, and now it's predominantly the suburbs and the regional centers.

And that's point number one.

I think it's a very different composition.

And second, I think that people remember a decade of gridlock.

And so the grass is always greener right now.

Some folks, you know, the minority are saying, well, there's been too much happening.

Well, for ten years we didn't get a lot of things done.

But now we funded our schools.

Now we made sure kids get fed.

Now we make sure, you know, we've got infrastructure in place.

So I think the grass is always greener.

But I think Minnesotans by and large want their government to work for them.

I think just the opposite.

I think it went too far to the left and there's going to be a reckoning on November 5th of people saying, let's bring it back.

They don't want gridlock, but they do want the legislature to pay attention to issues of importance.

Issues of importance are not the top of the list of what happened with the DFL in ‘23 and ’24.

It's family, economy, and getting things, getting family budgets ahead of the state government budget, not spending it all and raising it 38%.

So Sara you don't think that the trifecta will fall apart?

I really don't think that the trifecta is going to fall apart.

We were able to deliver to Minnesota for Minnesota families incredible wins ranging from like, the right to organize, protected fami like the the list is endless.

And I do think that the the nature of politicking has changed.

Our country is more polarized than ever.

And I don't think that both parties used to be what they used to be.

So I really, really think that unfortunately, bipartisan legislation doesn't exist anymore.

And if we're going to get anything done, I do agree that things kind of have to get done on a partisan basis.

NPR had a very interesting story that I wanted to run by you, saying that candidates on both sides are having personal problems exposed and that the old vetting style has gone away.

And I wonder if you think that has something to do with a lack of vetting at the local level?

What's your thought about the vetting of these folks that, yeah, problems turn up, up on, campaigning?

How much time do we have?

Honestly, this is one of the biggest problems we have with the caucus system.

And it's not a Republican problem.

It's not a DFL problem.

It's everybody's problem because we don't get the best candidates to come forward in either party.

We get the party extremists who can get endorsed they can get through that process, and that's who the parties nominate.

Regardless of what we might know about some of their backgrounds, it doesn't matter.

And we end up having to fight those battles in November.

That should have been fought back in March, when we nominate candidates and put them on a primary ballot and pick the best candidate, not just the one who can survive the endorsing process.

Abou it does seem that there's minimal vetting down ballot.

Would you agree with that?

And why is that?

Look, here's what I would say.

I think there was a time and a place when our media and others understood certain things aren't really news.

Right?

And today with social media, everything is news.

There's constant feeding of news.

And so I think it's actually a reflection of social media and its continuous engagement cycle, whereas maybe that didn't exist 20 or 30 years ago.

Running for office has completely changed.

And I feel like, for example, for the folks who are about to retire, a lot of people didn't think about a succession plan.

A lot of people didn't think about investing in who was g to succeed them.

And I think that's also very important when you are running for office, thinking about staying in office, but thinking about, okay, so what's next for my district and investing in that leadership within the district is incredibly important.

Well, I would agree with Abou a little bit on this.

I think that the level of scrutiny, that exists now, doesn't didn't exist before.

And not only that, it isn't just that the press isn't isn't vetting them and the party activists aren't vetting them.

It's when it is found out it's anything is a weapon.

Everything is weaponized.

There are there are certain rules about not criticizing somebody for family problems or those kinds of things that were followed and, unspoken rules that are gone.

You're right.

I mean, politics in that regard has changed.

It's, these, some of these elections are just absolutely brutal in terms of the personal stuff that's going back and forth.

Also what's acceptable in the discourse.

Right.

Because I feel like 2016 completely changed what's acceptable in the discourse and what's acceptable within the political discussion.

I k the bigger problem is a lot of candidates that would maybe run, especially for statewide office, will not put themselves and their families through this process.

It is a meat grinder that requires so much of their time, so much of their personal resources that they look at this only to be have some something that happened 40 years ago or 30 years ago while they were in college and young and foolish and weren't we all?

And I'm so thankful Facebook and and Instagram didn't exist back then, but they exist today.

And that's part of the problem is they have to live in that world.

Say, do you want to talk specific races?

Do you think that Dean Phillips seat will be staying in DFL hands?

Yes.

I don't think there's any question on that.

If you look at generally where the Democratic Party has done the strongest, not in Minnesota, but across the country, it's in suburban, highly educated, affluent suburbs, just like the third Congressional District.

I don't think the Republicans have a chance there.

Yeah, I'm very excited about the work that Ann Johnson Stuart has been doing.

She’s been doorknocking super, super hard.

And I know that this is not like a Senate race, but her race is incredibly important.

And that's going to carry the district I believe.

Well I really like that too, I do too.

But having said that, you know, that's that it's interesting how we've seen a transition in the southwestern suburbs.

they are trending.

I still think of them as being purple more than.

But they're trending and they've been trending blue for decades now.

I think it's going to be a long reach and a long time before Republicans, even in this kind of an election year where interesting things might happen, it's kind of a tough reach for the Republicans to grab that one.

KSTP did a poll in the second district, Angie Craig, the DFL incumbent, Joe Teirab as the Republican.

Now Angie Craig, according to this poll, is up eight points in CD2.

Trump is up two.

We're going to have Craig, Trump voters.

I think we're going to have a lot of ticket splitters, which is why we'll do better and take control of the state House.

Republicans will, because there's a lot of people who maybe will vote for Amy Klobuchar, but they're going to come back over to the Republican side, and vote for a state legislative candidate.

And the Teirab race, I think, first of all, what a superior candidate we have.

And the interesting thing.

He’s not getting any help from the Republican organization.

Well I think the cavalry might be coming in.

But we've only gotten $2 million in IE money so far this year.

Inependent expenditure money.

Correct.

Back in 2018, that number was 48 million.

That's the difference between having highly contested races.

But Angie Craig is not over 50%.

She should be.

Her reelect should be a lot higher.

Craig, Trump voters?

Look, there's going to be a small segment of those voters.

But let's remember, abortion is going to decide the election in the second Congressional district.

You look at races all across the country.

Again, this is a middle class district, a suburban district largely, and abortion is the number one issue for those suburban women that's going to make the election.

Suburban women are incredibly important in this race.

You hope.

Yeah.

I would say the economy is the number one issue in the second district.

And I live out there.

The economy is always the number one issue, but it doesn't tell you how people are going to vote.

If you think we should be spending billions of dollars, but the economy is your number one issue.

You might be voting Democrat, but economy still number one.

That's why abortion tells you where you're going to be voting.

And number two is immigration.

You know, if you look across the board, abortion is really quite down the list.

You know, I agree, suburban women, suburban white women tend to be focused in the suburbs by definition.

But as a practical matter and overall, it's not it's not going to be a driving force in most races.

It might matter in three.

It certainly is going to have some impact in the northern part of two.

But, in the end, it's not going to be the driver in that election.

I've heard from a lot of Schultz people in the eighth district wanted to know where the coverage is of the race.

How, how strong is Stauber up in the eighth?

Will he win?

Very strongly.

He's going to win, probably with close to 60%.

And I also believe this will be the first race where we sweep all of those contested races.

The Republicans will sweep all of them in the in the Iron Range.

And Stauber might be a Republican gubernatorial candidate in ‘26.

Well, I sure hope he's thinking about it.

Okay.

Who else?

Strong vote getter.

Anybody else?

I think there'll be quite a few coming forward.

And I think Joe Teirab, if he's not successful this time, I hope and pray he runs again because he's just a terrific candidate.

If Walz loses, and I'm assuming that he will, but if Walz loses, he's going to be damaged goods in Minnesota.

There will be a lot of people interested in running against him.

And, Senator Smith, is she running?

She said she's opened or she plans to run.

It's full speed ahead right now.

She's raising money.

She's doing the work.

I think she's running.

Yeah, I think just running.

Got to go.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Good stuff.