Star Tribune
PAC money fuels record spending in Duluth mayor’s race
DULUTH — Spending on the Duluth mayoral race has climbed to new heights, thanks to big-ticket donations from political action committees, a rarity in the city of 86,000.
Both Mayor Emily Larson and challenger Roger Reinert are supported by independent interests and, in Larson’s case, the state DFL. Combined with their own fundraising, nearly $500,000 has been funneled into mailers, signs and social media, among other spending.
That’s more than double what was spent in the last competitive mayoral race in 2007.
The amount raised this year is startling for a city the size of Duluth, where both candidates are from the same political party, said a local political science professor.
“The two campaigns are not terribly far off in the amount they have individually raised,” said Kathryn Haglin, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Duluth. “That huge boost is coming from these outside sources. And that’s something we haven’t seen as much in the past.”
The latest campaign finance reports show Larson has raised about $116,000 overall, with Reinert at nearly $102,000. Forever Duluth, a political action committee formed to support his efforts, raised more than $130,000, the bulk from a Duluth hotelier and a retired businessman. Both also have given heavily to Republican politicians, including former President Donald Trump and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
A climate-focused PAC supporting Larson poured $65,000 into the race, with money from the League of Conservation Voters. The Minnesota DFL spent about $50,000, although some went toward other Duluth candidates, said DFL Chair Ken Martin.
Reinert said Friday that he’s a nonpartisan candidate in the race and that most of the donations to his campaign have been small and local.
“I think the more interesting question is, ‘Why is Emily Larson getting so much money from outside the community?'” he said, noting he wouldn’t feel beholden to those who donated to Forever Duluth.
“I’m grateful to have people out there saying positive things and supporting us,” Reinert said.
Larson said she’s not surprised by the interest in the race, but there is a “major distinction between a known entity standing and investing in their endorsed candidate and a group of individuals single-handedly writing enormous checks.”
She said her campaign has been focused on direct contact with residents, knocking on 15,000 doors.
Both candidates said they have not worked with the PACs supporting them.
Martin characterized some of the donors to the Forever Duluth PAC as “extremist” Republicans, and noted a limited liability company that gave $20,000 but isn’t registered with the state.
“You don’t typically see that type of stuff in local races,” Martin said. “PACs pop up all the time that support candidates. What is unusual is the real imbalance you’re seeing in terms of the ideological donors. …”
Reinert, a former lawmaker, was a founder of the “Purple Caucus” during his Senate days, which was a group of DFL and GOP legislators willing to work together on issues and build relationships.
Minnesota law allows up to $600 in contributions to a candidate for a single year in cities with populations less than 100,000. That doesn’t apply to political action committees.
Former Duluth Mayor Don Ness said there was some outside spending in his 2007 race against Charlie Bell, but it was minimal.
Large amounts of independent money funding local elections seems more like “politics from a distance,” he said, rather than the exchange of ideas with your neighbors.
“When big, dumb money comes in and just kind of sloshes around, everything gets simplified into taglines and billboards. There’s a lot of heat but no light,” said Ness, who for a decade was campaign manager for the late U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, a Democrat.
Former St. Louis County Commissioner Frank Jewell filed a complaint this week with the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings regarding Forever Duluth’s unregistered limited liability company donor.
“Many people who are invested in good government really oppose and want to see, at the very least, if we allow PACs, that we can tell who it is that’s giving the money,” he said.
Pat Mullen, an Essentia Health executive, started the PAC. He said the entity in question was legitimate, but wouldn’t disclose who was behind it.
A St. Paul man who was in critical condition following a fire last week at his home in the Battle Creek neighborhood has died, marking the city’s eighth fire death this year.
According to a news release from the St. Paul Fire Department, the man was found unconscious in the basement of a house on Nelson Street early in the morning of Oct. 17, after fire crews had extinguished a fire at the two-story residence. Paramedics undertook life-saving measures before taking him to the hospital.
No one else was injured in the fire, which was found to have been accidental and started in the engine of a car parked in the tuck-under garage. The fire was confined to the garage, but heavy smoke filled the house. Smoke detectors enabled others in the house to exit safely, officials said.
That hasn’t ebbed with Simpli-Fi. The startup incorporated in 2018 as a company based out of Florida that integrated technology systems together in commercial buildings to work as a single unit. But business sputtered when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Campbell had to make staff cuts to his team of 16 employees. He called it one of “the worst times” of his life.
“But during that time is where we made a pivot,” Campbell said.
He set out to find a new technology, eventually spotting NASA’s electronic nose thanks to Brown Venture Group, a St. Paul based firm that supports Black, Latino and Indigenous tech startups. Campbell’s brother, Paul Campbell, is a partner at the firm but said he recused himself from the investment decision.
Chris Campbell was skeptical of the electronic nose’s capabilities at first but sprung for a commercialization license after spending a year researching the technology. By this past summer, he had moved the company to Minnesota and specifically the Osborne building because both are “known for device creation,” he said.
Simpli-Fi’s sensor packs some of the science of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry — which require huge machines — into a sensor the size of a dime, Campbell said. Using nanotubes, the sensor picks up metabolic qualities in the air and breath, he said.
For now, the company is focused on the C. diff-sensing Provectus Canary device, which scans the air around a hospital patient to detect the bacteria that causes the infection, which has gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea. The company is working toward the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for using the sensor to detect various diseases.
A Minneapolis man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for murdering his neighbor in their North Side apartment building last year.
Walter Lee Hill, 59, had pleaded guilty on Monday to second-degree intentional murder. He will get credit for having served nearly a year in jail.
Police were called to the Gateway Lofts on W. Broadway Avenue last November on a report that someone was shot. Officers found Donald Edmondson, 60, dead on the floor of his apartment with a gunshot wound to the chest.
A video camera in the hallway showed Hill knocking on Edmondson’s door, reaching into his sweatshirt pocket and firing his gun once. Hill then left in his Lexus, which officers found near Elliot Park downtown.
They spotted Hill walking nearby, asked for his ID and arrested him when he said something to the effect that they had the right guy.
A witness told police they saw Hill shoot Edmondson, and another said there had been an ongoing dispute between the two. Two days before the murder, Hill had called police because he believed neighbors were breaking into his apartment.
In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Edmondson “should still be alive. A violent act committed with such disregard by Mr. Hill has taken him from his family. This sentence delivers accountability and protects our community, and I hope it brings some measure of peace to Mr. Edmondson’s loved ones as they attempt to move forward with their lives.”
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