Meet Minnesota’s most vulnerable progressive

Keith Ellison, the state attorney general and former congressman, had finished a chokeberry pie and was speaking at the Minnesota State Fair one recent afternoon when, at the back of the crowd, a late-arriving supporter asked the people in front of him if Ellison had brought up the one topic some Democrats fear could sink his reelection. “Did he talk about crime at all?” asked the man, dressed in a black-and-white cap with “Moo” printed on it. Later, he called out to Ellison, “Hey, Keith, good luck!” Ellison had talked about it. And not just in his speech at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s pavilion at the fair, with its “Paul Wellstone,” “Roe Roe Roe Your Vote” and “OMG GOP WTF” T-shirts for sale. Ellison’s support for a failed measure last year to overhaul the Minneapolis Police Department had come up during an on-stage interview at the fairgrounds. Crime is about all his Republican opponent, Jim Schultz, wants to discuss.

`And in a state where the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 sparked a nationwide reckoning on public safety and police reform, it’s the primary reason Ellison is seen by political professionals of both parties in Minnesota as the single most vulnerable incumbent in the state. “I still think he will win,” said Briana Rose Lee, chair of the Minneapolis DFL, as Democrats are known here. But inside the DFL pavilion on the day Ellison spoke, she said, “He’s definitely the one who is the most in trouble out of our statewide candidates.” A former deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee and one-time leader of the progressive wing of his party in Washington, Ellison’s reelection prospects would once have seemed secure. Since leaving Congress to run for state attorney general in Minnesota in 2018, Ellison, now 59, had compiled a record of progressive-pleasing litigation on issues ranging from climate change to abortion rights and opioids. He successfully prosecuted police officer Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s murder. And he was widely viewed in Minnesota as a potential future contender for governor or U.S. Senate.