Minnesota voters made history this week advancing women as nominees in two big ballot races.

The primary resulted in nominations of female candidates from both major parties for governor and U.S. senator.

DFLer Amy Klobuchar will face Republican Lisa Demuth in the governor's race. Republican Michele Tafoya is up against Democrat Peggy Flanagan for an open Senate seat.

Kelly Dittmar, director of research and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said Minnesota's setup is unprecedented.

"It's the first time that we have a state that is going to have what we would call all-women contests at both the gubernatorial and Senate level in one election cycle," she said.

Dittmar said it’s rare to see head-to-head matchups of women in major congressional or statewide races.

“These are highly coveted seats, and voters are putting women in the position to to claim them,” she said. “It gives us knowledge that we're all but guaranteed to have women in those offices at the end of this as a result of this election.”

Whomever wins the election for governor will be the first woman to hold that office.

The only way it wouldn’t happen is if one of the nominees leaves the ticket due to an unforeseen scandal, serious health issue or death. There is also a extremely longshot chance that the Green Party’s Steven Young could prevail or a write-in campaign gains steam.

Minnesota is among 18 states to never elect a woman as governor, a list that includes neighboring Wisconsin and North Dakota. Utah also shares that distinction, but the state has had a woman as governor through succession.

In the Senate race, there are two more women whose names will be on the ballot: Libertarian Rebecca Whiting and independent Marisa Simonetti.

Minnesota has had three women serving as U.S. senator, beginning with the appointed Muriel Humphrey after her husband’s death; she served a bit more than 10 months and didn’t run to fill out the uncompleted term. Klobuchar was the first to win a Senate seat in 2006. She and Sen. Tina Smith have been an all-woman duo since 2018.

All of Minnesota’s women in the U.S. Senate have been Democrats, meaning a Tafoya victory would make history as the first Republican woman Minnesota voters have elected to the chamber.

Minnesota’s House delegation currently has a five-to-three female majority that includes women in both parties.

Flanagan, Tafoya and Demuth have additional barriers they could break.

Demuth, currently Minnesota’s House speaker, would be the state’s first governor who is a person of color.

Flanagan, currently the lieutenant governor, would be the first Indigenous woman elected U.S. senator.

Tafoya, who is making her first run for office after a career in sports broadcasting, has Hispanic heritage.

Tuesday’s primary results have set up a November contest for Minnesota governor between Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Minnesota Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke to Klobuchar Wednesday about her plans if she wins the election.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player button above.

‘Fresh ideas’ for the governor’s office

The first is going to be a top-to-bottom audit of state government, and that means everything from changing the way that we vet contracts and not having any more of these Zoom audits; instead, you know, actually inspect places in person.

I also am just excited to be able to make government work better for Minnesotans. It should match their drive and ambition. If you apply for a permit, you should get an answer, and if you don't get an answer within a certain amount of time, you should get your money back.

And so it is taking our government, cutting through the red tape, especially with the budget deficit that we're going to be facing, and then making sure it works, lowering costs for Minnesotans, getting 100,000 new homes built with the private sector, doubling the number of apprenticeships in the jobs of the future, not the past.

Fixing fraud in public aid programs

The governor has said himself that he should have caught this earlier. Minnesotans have a right to be so angry about this rip-off of taxpayer money. So it is the first thing that I'm going to be doing. That's why on Day 1 I'm going to launch that audit.

But there are other things that we also have to do to make life better for the people of our state. Our state is a state that brought the world everything from the Post-it note to the pacemaker. But we can't rest on our laurels. So this is, to me, what's going to be fun — a growth agenda, bringing in more business, expanding the businesses that we have.

Decision-making on data centers

The first thing is local control to allow the local residents to make decisions and not take that away from them. That's what you see happening. That's on the front line. That everything is different in each place, and they have to be able to make a decision and maintain that.

The second thing is state laws that make sure that if a data center is going to be built, you have to have full disclosures of what negotiations are going on. That is not in law right now, and that's something I would change. But also the existing law that was just put in place — it's more progressive than some states — and making sure that ratepayers are not on the hook.

And in fact, they benefit from this with the way the numbers are. And those are things you can build into a contract if someone, if a local community is interested in going forward with a data center; you also can do more when it comes to environmental protections.

A lot more needs to be done. The reason people are so angry is there have been some really bad situations around the country with data centers.

Job approach if elected

Putting Minnesotans first, getting things done. I have done that throughout my career. I get results. I hate excuses.

I like to get things done, and to me, that means looking at all of state government and figuring out for the people how can we get this done, standing up to Donald Trump when necessary and working with their administration when there's common ground.

One of the things that really bothers me about my opponent now that I know who it is, Lisa Demuth, is she is someone that's going to be a rubber stamp of Donald Trump.

She has not spoken out on the tariffs that have raised costs across the board. She won't speak out against the Medicaid cuts that hurt our rural hospitals. She won't speak out against the war in Iran, which has cost Americans deeply.

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan emerged as the winner at last night's primary for the Democratic nomination — beating better-funded Congresswoman Angie Craig.

Lt. Gov. Flanagan will now face former sports broadcaster and Republican nominee Michele Tafoya in the U.S. Senate race in November.

MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with Flanagan about her campaign to be the state’s next U.S. Senator.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity. Click the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

You've aligned with progressive figures who endorsed you, but you'll need some more moderate, independent voters in the fall to win. What's your pitch to them?

My pitch to them is the same that it's been throughout this entire campaign, which is, I am running to make sure people can afford the lives they want to live.

Too many folks are struggling right now, and I think a lot of folks are struggling due to the fact that [President] Donald Trump is very invested in making sure that he does well, and the billionaires around him, while working families are being left behind.

So I'm excited to keep running a strong grassroots campaign in all corners of Minnesota, showing up and working to earn the trust of voters.

How do you sell Medicare for All to a more moderate voter?

When I'm traveling in Greater Minnesota, Medicare for All is something that I hear a lot of support for because people who live in rural communities are getting squeezed. They have fewer options. Their care oftentimes is more expensive, and Medicare for All is, I think, one of the best ways to make sure folks can keep more money in their their pocket, and they're not going to be worried about visiting the doctor and paying that bill.

Folks who I've talked to have, you know, $16,000 deductibles and are just drowning. I think this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to fight for, so people again can afford their lives and pay for healthcare and not just health insurance.

Michelle Tafoya talks about support of abortion rights, saying she doesn't always agree with President Trump. She also didn't like how ‘Operation Metro Surge’ began in Minnesota. How do you compete for those kind of swing voters who might be seeing Tafoya as a more moderate option than you?

Well, I think that Michele Tafoya is trying to reinvent herself, because in her initial campaign launch video, she had footage of ICE. She, in fact, said ICE treated children really, really well. And I would say, you know, tell that to Liam [Conjeo] Ramos.

We see that she has been supportive of Donald Trump's illegal war in Iran that has caused gas prices to skyrocket. And when asked about how Minnesotans should deal with that, she told folks to have a stiff upper lip and take one less trip to Starbucks. I think asking people to suck it up, just because of Donald Trump and his on-again, off-again war in Iran, is completely disconnected from where Minnesotans are right now.

Folks want to be able to afford their lives. With the high cost of gas and fertilizer prices, Michele Tafoya is going to just be another ‘Yes, sir, Mr. President’ Senator, and we do not need that. We need someone who's going to serve the people of Minnesota and the people of Minnesota alone.

You talked about Minnesotans being motivated to join your campaign following ‘Operation Metro Surge.’ Last night during your acceptance speech, you talked about ripping ICE apart. What are you actually proposing?

I think that we can have secure borders and an immigration system that is grounded in safety, dignity, and a pathway to citizenship.

What we currently see in this agency is the fact they've been allowed to kill 11 individuals, including two Minnesotans, with impunity. Over $240 billion has gone to Donald Trump's ICE, and for what? We've just seen chaos and terror.

And so I want to work with folks — Democrats, Republicans — to create an immigration system that's actually grounded in safety and dignity. Because what we have right now is completely broken. And look forward to doing that work.

I'm not hearing you say you're calling to abolish it, as some progressive candidates have called for. How do you see it moving forward?

I mean, we need, you know, an immigration system, but ICE as it currently exists is not it. And I think there are folks across the country who are disturbed by what they've seen. And in Minnesota, when we saw 3,000 ICE agents terrorize our communities, traumatize our children and cause tremendous economic impact and fallout.

We can do better, and we can build an immigration system that is grounded again in safety and humanity, and not indefinite detention for folks. As we know that also over 50 people have died while in custody under Donald Trump's ICE.

So I think we need to work in partnership with organizations to determine what this will look like going forward. But I can tell you this system is broken, and I believe we can have comprehensive immigration reform, and you know that's what we're going to work towards. And that's what I hear Minnesotans talking about. And it's what they want and what they need from their leaders in Washington, D.C.

How will you address fraud during this general election?

I mean, I think we need to be really clear that fraud of any kind is unacceptable. As a former executive director of an organization that served children and families, I am angry and horrified that folks would steal taxpayer dollars for their own enrichment.

I know this is the issue that Republicans are going to use to run against every Democrat, and it's important that we are very clear that the grift and corruption under Donald Trump is something that Minnesotans are concerned about. And the fact that this guy is making money hand over fist through his crypto meme coin, through insider trading, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

That is what Lisa Demuth and Michele Tafoya are going to have to answer for, and right now, they're actively seeking his endorsement.

How many debates do you want to do with Michele Tafoya?

It has not been 24 hours since the polls have closed, but we will absolutely debate. I look forward to it.

The November ballot is now set in the U.S. Senate race, with the two major party candidates bringing vastly different approaches.

DFL Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan has grown up in Minnesota politics, with a campaign built on grassroots organizing. Former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya has nationwide name recognition and is a favorite of national Republican circles.

The differences between their campaigns were clearly visible in how the two watched the returns Tuesday.

Flanagan held a party at the iconic Minneapolis music venue First Avenue, with volunteers, staff and many DFL supporters packed onto the dance floor, chanting “Peggy! Peggy! Peggy!” when the race was called for her.

Tafoya held a private event and spoke to reporters afterwards by phone.

"My team and I are thrilled tonight. Our message resonated loud and clear all across Minnesota,” she said Tuesday night.

It's not just how they celebrated primary night. Tafoya and Flanagan have very different backgrounds, experiences and audiences.

Flanagan has spent her career working in and around Minnesota politics — as a Minneapolis school board member, as a state legislator and as lieutenant governor. She’s a prominent and well-known figure in the DFL.

Tafoya, on the other hand, is new to politics but is well-known through her work as a national sports reporter. As a candidate, she has been a frequent guest on Fox News and has much more of a national presence.

"This really opens up the map, right? Michele Tafoya is a very attractive candidate who has a lot of backing,” said Republican strategist Amy Fredrickson on MPR News Wednesday. She said Tafoya is well-liked by national Republicans and she expects both parties to pour resources into the race.

"I think we're going to see money coming in, the likes that we have not seen in a statewide race, certainly in a U.S. Senate race for maybe decades,” Fredrickson said.

The two candidates began going after pinch points right away after their primary victories.

Flanagan, who says the war in Iran is illegal and must end, brought up past comments from Tafoya on rising costs due to the war.

"And an illegal war that's costing us billions? Michele Tafoya said, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. President.’” Flanagan said. “And when people said the war was driving gas prices too high, she told Minnesotans, and I quote, 'keep a stiff upper lip' and 'take one less trip to Starbucks.' Woof!"

When asked on MPR’s Morning Edition whether she would vote to end the war with Iran, Tafoya was non-committal.

"We need to make sure that they never get a nuclear weapon,” Tafoya said. “We need to protect and stand with our allies in the region, and I'm prepared to do that without a ‘forever war’ and boots on the ground."

Tafoya leaned in to what will clearly be her central attack on Flanagan.

"It doesn't matter if I'm in Moorhead or Eyota or Orono or St. Paul, people want to know what's going to happen with this fraud,” Tafoya said. “They are angry. We've all been stolen from. It happened on her watch, and she hasn't said a thing about it."

Often in a midterm, the president's popularity plays an outsized role, and Donald Trump's has been slumping. Flanagan connected Tafoya to the president early and often in her speech.

"We already have too many spineless 'Yes, sir!' Senators who won't stand up to Donald Trump,” Flanagan said. “Minnesota, we are not going to send him another one. And Michele Tafoya may not understand what you're going through, but I do."

Tafoya, who urged Trump not to run for a second term, said she's not in lock step with him.

"I am running to call balls and strikes to say I think the president is right on this one. I think the president is wrong on this one,” she said. “And I have the spine to stand up and say those things."

Former DFL legislative leader Ryan Winkler said that's unlikely to persuade voters looking for a check on the White House.

"I think the national environment this year will not be favorable to the Republicans, and there is very close to zero chance that Minnesota will be an exception to that national trend,” he said.

With a national spotlight on this race, Fredrickson said she expects money to pour into advertising.

“Buckle up, because those ads are not going to be soon off your TVs,” she said.

Minnesota will get at least one new member in the U.S. House in November’s election. The 2nd Congressional District seat is open after Angie Craig waged an unsuccessful Senate run.

The mostly suburban district that stretches south into farm country is up for grabs. Former state Senator Matt Little is the Democratic nominee and will face Republican state senator Eric Pratt.

Little joined MPR News host Nina Moini and politics editor Brian Bakst to talk about his campaign.

You've been out of office for nearly six years. Why is now the right time to to jump back in?

When we announced 15, 16 months ago, it was really about my daughter. I just felt like everything's falling apart, and this is her country, and this is her future. So I couldn't sit on the sidelines, because when my daughter asks me down the line, what did I do? I need to have a good answer.

You ran on a progressive-style agenda: Medicare for all, holding ICE accountable and calling for an end to U.S. military aid in Israel. How do you expect that agenda to sell in a purple district in a general election?

I think the best proof we have a winning message for the general actually comes from Eric Pratt. Two weeks ago, he released a poll, and he did the heads-up match up against all the primary candidates, and we were the one that beat him by the most. We were ahead by five points, and that's before getting our message out there for the general. So I think we're in a really good position.

I think people are looking for policies that provide healthcare from the day you're born till the day you pass, and that's Medicare for all. People are getting gouged out there, $2000, $3,000 a month, and then a deductible — and that's if the insurance company approves their care. Enough is enough.

You said you'd push for what you're calling an anti-ICE bill of rights. How did ICE activity in the state impact your decision to run?

I announced this run before ICE invaded our state, so it became an issue as we were here. As some folks are familiar, my wife is an immigrant, came here on political asylum when she was a kid and we met in law school. And she had to carry her passport, even though she's a citizen and an attorney.

What they did to the state is awful, and a big part of the anti-ICE bill of rights is making sure murderers go to jail. They murdered two of our citizens here, and they've killed other people across the country. They need to be held accountable; otherwise, future presidents just use this as a personal police force to do their bidding and their political will. That's what Trump is doing right now.

How do you want the federal government to handle the issue of data centers?

We've been pushing for a moratorium. Policies and regulations and actual studies and factual information, we need to gather all that up before we start plopping these things everywhere.

This is a democracy, and people have a right to know what's going in their city or town or township, and that's one of my biggest issues: these non-disclosure agreements. They get these projects all the way to the end, and then, surprise, we're gonna pass this at a meeting. The public has a right to know, and that's a big part of why I'm pushing a moratorium.

The only way I'd stop pushing a moratorium is all these companies nationwide are willing to stop using NDAs, and we get federal legislation passed in that vein. Otherwise, I think this is destroying our democracy.

Do you think data centers are more of a federal issue than than a state or local zoning matter?

It’s a local, state and federal issue, but I view the federal government's role as always providing a minimum standard of rights.

I think, at this point, it's hard to have piecemeal regulations when we have all these NDAs. These companies are surprising communities that don't have enough time to get the information or fight back. So, just trying to protect people in the short term by using a moratorium until we can get these regulations updated.

Where should the federal government draw money from to pay for expanded healthcare, childcare and other things you want to see?

I think number one, we stop getting into completely unnecessary foreign wars. Number two, we stop sending military aid to countries that are killing innocent children. Number three would be to undo the tax cuts to the top earners in this country, the millionaires and billionaires, that Trump has passed.

President Trump will still have two more years if you get to Congress. Do you expect he would be amenable to any of those things?

Probably not, but I think that's one of the problems that we have in our politics. A lot of politicians just look short term. They're just looking at their next reelection and spending all their time raising money. I think Democrats have to grow a spine, but we also have to have a long-term plan, and it's got to be a three-year plan.

We need to bring legislation he's surely going to vote against, his party is going to vote against. We can show the American people that this party and this president don't really care about them on issues of affordability and healthcare and childcare and higher education. And then when we take back the U.S. Senate and the White House, that's when we can get some real structural, generational change done.

How prominent of a role do you expect feelings toward President Trump to play in this race, whether people like him or loathe him?

I think even absent him, there's just a real anger out there. No matter what side of the aisle you're on, you got folks that are real angry about fraud, as they should be.

You got folks really angry about what's happening abroad, as they should be. You got folks angry about gas, grocery prices, as they should be. You got people angry about housing, and how people can't even buy a home until the average age of first-time homeowners is 40 years old. They should be angry about that. And I do believe a lot of that comes from the top.

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Whether voters elect House Speaker Lisa Demuth or Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November, Minnesota's next governor will be a woman. That's never happened before. But for the last 43 years, all Minnesota's lieutenant governors have been women.

Marlene Johnson (DFL) started the trend as the state's first female lieutenant governor. She served in the role alongside former governor Rudy Perpich from 1983 to 1991. In 2024, she published a book, “Rise to the Challenge: A Memoir of Politics, Leadership and Love.”

Johnson joined MPR News host Nina Moini and politics editor Brian Bakst to talk about this moment.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Wisconsin, like Minnesota, was making sense of primary election results Wednesday. Its race for governor has received particular attention nationwide. It's one of several races across the country where progressive or democratic socialist candidates have faced off against moderate Democrats. In this case, the moderate won.

David Crowley narrowly defeated Francesca Hong. Hong had been leading in polls and Crowley had previously suspended his campaign before rejoining the race. Now, he'll face Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in the November midterm.

PBS Wisconsin senior political reporter Zac Schultz recently joined Minnesota Now to break down the eventful campaign season that led up to the primary. He came back to talk about what happened and what comes next heading into the midterms.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Minnesota will get at least one new member in the U.S. House in November’s election. The 2nd Congressional District seat is open after Angie Craig waged an unsuccessful Senate run.

The mostly suburban district that stretches south into farm country is up for grabs. Republican state Sen. Eric Pratt is his party’s nominee and will face former state Sen. Matt Little, the Democratic nominee.

Pratt joined MPR News host Nina Moini and politics editor Brian Bakst to talk about his campaign.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Why did you feel now is the right time for you to shift your attention to Washington?

I've had a great career in the Minnesota Senate and really enjoyed working with my colleagues. I was able to work on a lot of bipartisan legislation. I had the opportunity to chair the Jobs Committee, the the Education Committee — but it felt like it was time to to move on. This is the area I grew up in. This is the area where I raised my family.

I think we need someone in Washington who can be very solutions-oriented. When I was first thinking of running for the Senate, my old boss one time said bankers are problem solvers, and we need more problem solvers in government.

When I think back on my career in business, when I led the fraud team and I managed a large portfolio on the school board and we turned a million-dollar debt into a $3 million surplus and our test scores went up — and then the good work that we've done in the Minnesota Senate. I think we need that kind of leadership in Washington, and that's what I expect and hope to bring.

What makes you think the district could shift back to Republicans this year?

One thing about the 2nd district is they tend to vote for the person more than the party, so I'm really running about what I can bring to the job rather than what a Republican can bring to the job. I'm relying on my business experience, relying on my school board experience. When I hired people, the best indicator of success was looking at the past successes that they've had.

I believe the the families in Minnesota's 2nd district are more center-right. But, you know, Rep. Craig has been has been a a very good Congresswoman for us. She's been more moderate, and people respect that. I've won elections in part of my district that have been more swing, and I'm the only Republican that's gotten over 50 percent in that area, the last three times I've run.

What's one thing you think Congress could do to make life more affordable?

Right now, especially here in Minnesota, we are so overtaxed. Not only did the Democrats spend the $18 billion surplus but added another $10 billion in taxes.

I think we've got to look at what's hitting Minnesota families first and foremost. Working on pro-growth strategies to make sure we have great jobs for people to take and build their careers with, but also using that growth to help us balance the budget. That's what we did at the school board. That's what we did at the state, and what I hope to be able to do in the Congress.

Subsidies for private insurance expired this year. Should they be restored?

Even with government intervention, healthcare has become more and more expensive and inaccessible for people. So we really have to figure that piece out.

I want to make sure that everybody has access to the healthcare they need in order to stay healthy. I'm committed to doing that. I don't have all the answers yet, but I do know that that having a single-payer system would be more expensive than allowing competition back into healthcare and helping patients be better consumers.

I worked on some things to help with affordability. I was the lead negotiator when the state put a $35 cap on insulin, working across the aisle with my DFL colleagues in the House, working with the governor's office to get that done. It took us 10 months, but we were able to finally get affordable insulin over the finish line.

Should Congress approve more funding for the war in Iran without a clear exit plan? What should be done about the economic burdens it's caused?

I think many of the economic burdens are going to be short-lived. We all hope the negotiations are fruitful. But we also see how completely unstable the Iranian government has been, and they've been at war with us for effectively 47 years. It’s been a problem that's been kicked down the road.

We can't afford to have a nuclear Iran, and we can't allow Iran to upset the entire region. So we need to finish the job with Iran and come to a peace agreement very soon. I'm hopeful that the administration will get that done, and hopefully we can get some some of the more reasonable voices in Iran to step up and help us with that.

What kind of oversight role do you want Congress to play on the Trump administration in his final two years?

For decades we've seen the role of Congress weakened and every president has used the War Powers Act. Every president has relied more and more on executive orders. I would like to see more of these of these issues come before Congress and take a vote. I supported it here at the state level, trying to have the legislature more involved in decisions rather than the governor's executive order.

We have co-equal branches as a government for a reason, and I think we need to to support that.

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With a budget gap looming, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is proposing a plan to cut spending and staffing across city departments — and hike property taxes by 11.3 percent next year.

The proposed $2.6 billion budget for 2027, which Frey outlined in an address Wednesday morning, also adds funding for police overtime and recruitment, fire department hiring and some community safety projects.

In his address, Frey said the proposal is a result of significant financial challenges.

“This budget reflects our values, and at this time, the primary value is stewardship,” Frey said. “Such stewardship requires difficult decisions, painful choices, and telling the truth about what it actually costs to run a city, especially when assistance from other jurisdictions is questionable.”

The city started the budgeting process with a revenue shortfall of more than $30 million — plus, Frey said the 2027 budget will need to add about another $30 million in spending to keep up basic city services. The city’s finance staff said the gap is largely due to increased costs to pay city employees, and higher costs for fuel and maintenance.

Minneapolis also spent millions responding to the federal immigration enforcement operation last winter. And Frey said the city is also budgeting around the potential loss of some federal funding.

To close that gap, Frey’s budget proposes cutting about 100 staff positions at the city. That includes leaving some empty positions unfilled. The city is already under a hiring freeze, with limited exceptions. City budget officials said they hope leaving those positions empty reduces the need to lay off workers.

Frey said the city will also save money by consolidating some departments. The Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging department will become part of the city’s human resources department; several other offices will combine.

Frey said he’s also in talks with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board about areas to consolidate. He pointed to duplications of the city’s work — for example, the park board has its own human resources department and payroll. City and park board officials are negotiating potential structural changes.

Frey said the city is cutting back carefully, but he expects some pushback.

“I am certain the two biggest critiques of this budget will be that the cuts are too deep, and that they aren’t deep enough,” Frey said.

Increased police budget

Frey’s budget proposes additional funding for some departments, with the biggest increase — $20.5 million — going toward police.

The bulk of that new funding — $13.1 million — is for overtime spending. The department overspent its overtime budget this year by $23 million, and by a similar amount in 2025. That was far over the office’s $2.3 million overtime budget for 2026. Frey said that spending was needed to keep officers on the streets and on standby, particularly during the federal immigration enforcement operation.

The increase in the 2027 budget does not indicate an actual increase in spending, Frey said — instead, it’s a more accurate budget for what the department spends.

“Our overtime allocation of $13.1 million is a transparent attempt to correct the mismatch by aligning our financial plan with the department’s operational reality,” Frey said.

Frey said cutting back on overtime hours isn’t an option.

“With 656 sworn officers — fewer per capita than almost any major city in the country — basic services expected by our residents require the use of overtime as a tool,” Frey said.

Some city council members and residents have criticized the department’s overspending.

City Council President Elliott Payne said he’s open to increasing the budget to get closer to what the department actually spends on overtime. But he said he wants to review that spending and the overtime hours used.

“What we need is a different type of conversation around what’s the right level of service, how should we fund it, what should we be trading off to fund that service — and making sure that there’s collective scrutiny on how we’re delivering that service,” Payne said.

Frey said police and city leaders have also reviewed the overtime spending and are looking for ways to cut back where possible. He’s also looking to hire more officers, which he said will cut back on the need for overtime work.

The remaining additional money for the police department is going toward recruitment and officer pay. Frey said the department has also reduced costs in some areas.

Another $2.3 million will go toward community safety ambassadors, a pilot program that the city plans to continue. The ambassadors are city employees who patrol specific corridors to perform wellness checks and offer help to residents. That funding will cover 23 new employees.

But the budget proposes significant cuts to the violence interrupter program, another non-police neighborhood safety initiative. That program contracts with workers from local organizations to provide violence interruption services. The budget proposal cuts $2.6 million from the program — more than half its previous budget.

The proposed budget also allocates funding for additional firefighters, a social worker in the city’s 911 office, affordable housing projects and contracts related to the city’s work on its settlement agreement around police reform.

Additional new spending is distributed among several departments. Frey said the city is looking to cover essential services, and work previously funded by grants that have now expired.

Proposed property tax increase

Frey’s budget proposes an 11.3 percent property tax increase. That comes out to about $409 per year, or $34 per month, for the median-value homeowner.

It’s a much steeper hike than the city predicted in its financial plan last year, and it’s higher than the city’s average annual property tax increase since 2018 of 7.7 percent.

Council member LaTrisha Vetaw said that’s going to be hard on constituents.

“That double-digit levy increase is a shocker,” Vetaw said after the mayor’s budget address. “I represent a community that… folks are living paycheck to paycheck. That number I always wanted to be as low as possible.”

Frey said he’s optimistic about the city’s future, in spite of the current budget gaps. He pointed to increased occupancy rates in downtown buildings in 2026, and more big events coming to Minneapolis.

“The difficult decisions we’re making in this budget reflect where we’ve been — not where we are and certainly not where we are headed,” he said.

Frey’s proposal kicks off the city’s budgeting process. The city council will now have a chance to propose changes and take public input on the budget. The council plans to hold several public hearings, including some around the city outside of City Hall. Council leaders said they hope that makes it easier for constituents to attend and weigh in.

The council and the mayor will have to agree to a spending plan — and tax levy — by the end of 2026.

Rochester’s wide open mayoral race is now narrowed down to two candidates running against one another this fall: Joe Powers, a prominent catering business owner, and Jess Garcia, a psychologist and former school board member.

Eight candidates were vying for Rochester top office in Tuesday’s primary election after two-term mayor Kim Norton announced she wouldn’t run again earlier this year.

Powers earned nearly half of the votes cast in the city, while Garcia won about a quarter of votes. The other six candidates — which include the president of Rochester’s NAACP chapter and a former city council person — each received less than 10 percent of the votes.

Powers and Garcia will face off in the general election in November, and the winner will be tasked with guiding Rochester through a period of tremendous change.

Rochester is in the midst of massive years-long projects and the ensuing seemingly endless construction projects that come along with that. Mayo Clinic is building a $5 billion hospital downtown and the city is in the midst of a 20-year $5.6 billion economic development plan, known as Destination Medical Center — meant to make Rochester more attractive to visitors, including the patients who fly half way across the world to work with Mayo Clinic doctors.

Conversations around affordability in town seemed to have helped Powers and Garcia win enough votes Tuesday to advance to the general election. Both focused on the topic in their platforms, from fighting against property tax hikes to exorbitant child care costs, with a particular emphasis on affordable housing.

They differed in that Powers has proposed a larger focus on public safety, which includes investing in the Rochester Police Department, while Garcia is driving home the importance of city hall transparency.

The November election will determine which platform best resonates with Rochester residents.

Here are the final vote totals with 100 percent precincts reporting:

• 48.92% - Joe Powers, a restaurant and catering company owner.

• 24.45% - Jess Garcia, a psychologist and former school board member.

• 7.97% - Walé Elegbede, Mayo Clinic project manager and president of the Rochester branch of the NAACP.

• 7.22% Ben Zastrow, a small business owner.

• 3.58% - Ayub HajiOmar, a substitute teacher in Rochester Public Schools.

• 3.56% - Axe Abdimajid Ahmed, business owner

• 2.54% - Molly Denis, former city council member.

• 1.76% - Jerrod Lucker, a literacy tutor.

MPR News guest host Catharine Richert talks with two political strategists about what Tuesday’s primary election results reveal about the future of Minnesota’s political parties, the influence of President Donald Trump and the November midterm elections.

Guests:

• Amy Frederiksen specializes in media relations and crisis communications and is a principal for Momentum Advocacy, a Minnesota-based lobbying firm. She has been a Republican political strategist and was the first woman to serve as majority leader in the Minnesota Senate.

• Ryan Winkler is a business and technology lawyer who served 13 years in the Minnesota House — representing St. Louis Park and Golden Valley — and was the DFL majority leader from 2018 to 2022. He is also the CEO of Crooked Beverage Company, a Minnesota hemp- THC beverage brand.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday related to childhood vaccines in an Oval Office ceremony, flanked by top health officials and a conservative commentator who talked about her child and her current pregnancy. Those attendees called the move "historic" and "a big deal."

But what's different today when it comes to childhood vaccine policy in the U.S.? Not much. There's no new research, no new vaccines available and no immediate change to insurance coverage or school requirements.

And so far, pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Shu in Atlanta says parents in her practice aren't asking her about what the executive order means for their kids.

For stories on the science of healthy living, subscribe to NPR's Health newsletter.

"At the very beginning, when the administration started making changes, people were concerned about — gosh, are we no longer going to have access to certain vaccines?," she says. "But I'm not hearing that anymore."

She says since some of the biggest swings from the White House – including an effort to reduce the number of federally-recommended vaccines for children – were blocked by courts and never took effect, "I'm feeling like a lot of parents are kind of wanting to see what the final result is before they get too concerned."

Still, the potential for confusion is real, she says. Here are the answers to five questions parents might be having about the executive order.

1. Are the same shots still available?

"Yes — as of right now, yes," Shu says. All of the shots in the childhood vaccine schedule backed by pediatricians are still available.

The Trump administration has tried — first through a panel of hand-picked advisors and then unilaterally — to change the list and timing of these vaccines, but has not been successful so far. The new executive order calls for certain things to be researched and reports to be written, but it makes no immediate changes.

All of that highlights the limits of the federal government in this area, says Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of the Global and Public Health Policy Program at the nonpartisan health research organization KFF.

"It's up to states and individual parents," she says. "States are going to make these decisions about school entry and then parents can make their own decisions about timing." In fact, she explains, "in all states but five, parents can opt out of vaccines or they can get a nonmedical exemption.

"So parents actually have quite a bit of choice already, and nothing about this will diminish or expand their choice," she adds.

2. Does this affect which vaccines are covered by insurance?

No, health insurance coverage is unchanged for all vaccines in the American Academy of Pediatrics' vaccine schedule. Nearly all families can receive vaccinations with no copays, including families without health insurance.

In a statement from May, AHIP, the trade association that represents health insurance companies, said that health plans would cover vaccines recommended by the CDC through the end of 2027.

3. Why is this vaccine order happening now?

It's not entirely clear why this executive order is being rolled out now, especially so close to the November midterms elections, since some Republican pollsters have warned vaccine changes are politically hazardous. The timing also intersects with the beginning of the school year.

At the signing, Trump seemed to indicate that his administration was making another move in this area because it matters a lot to him, and because past efforts have been blocked in the courts.

"I believed in this a long time," Trump explained as he signed the executive order Monday. When vaccinating his own children, Trump told reporters, he made extra doctors' appointments to spread out the number of shots they got at one time. "It's inconvenient, it's five stops, but it's something that I think will have a huge impact on autism," he added.

The executive order does not actually address autism and vaccines, but Trump made multiple references to it at the press conference, as did Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist. The links between autism and vaccines have been debunked by many studies.

"There's nothing new," Shu says. "Nothing has changed with the science." She adds that the effort to change the vaccine schedule is "based on misinformation."

4. What's the idea behind spacing out children's shots?

Shu says she does see families who ask about spacing out the vaccine schedule the way Trump describes doing with his own children.

"What I tell parents is that splitting the vaccines has not been studied — putting the vaccines together as scheduled has been proven to be safe and effective," she says. "And sometimes combining vaccines at one visit may help some work better together."

Spacing the vaccines out has downsides, she adds. "Splitting them up leaves a kid more vulnerable to certain infections if they get exposed before they're fully protected by the vaccine, it means more visits to the doctor's office, it means more time off that the parents take — things like that."

5. Could the MMR shot be split into three shots?

Maybe, but it would take a while. The executive order calls for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to be divided into three separate shots, but right now separate shots for those vaccines are not available in the U.S. A White House official told reporters on background Monday that the administration would be working with private drugmakers to explore making those available.

"There's no evidence whatsoever that that vaccine should be split, in fact, it raises all kinds of challenges and potential downsides," Kates from KFF says. She points out that one of the complaints raised by Trump is that children get too many shots, yet this change would increase the numbers of shots for the same amount of protection.

Kates adds that Trump's statements during the press conference about the dangers of the MMR shot could have a bigger impact on public health than the policy specifics of splitting up these vaccines. KFF polling shows most parents are supportive of vaccines, Kates says, but even a small group that becomes concerned or confused about vaccines can make a difference when it comes to public health.

"As we can see with the measles outbreak, as soon as you start to bring vaccine coverage down, even a slight amount, that is where you start to see breakthrough [infections] — that's the risk here," she says.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Moderate Democrat David Crowley won the Wisconsin primary for governor, defeating a democratic socialist who fell short of trying to deliver another win for progressives in a battleground state.

Crowley, who is vying to become Wisconsin’s first Black governor, pitched himself as the candidate best positioned to win in November against Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Crowley narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong, who was hoping to ride the wave of recent victories by progressive candidates, including Abdul El-Sayed in neighboring Michigan’s U.S. Senate race last week.

His win was the movement’s first major success in a purple state. It also fed fears in the party’s leaders that such candidates, farther afield and often carrying political baggage of past stances such as defunding the police, would struggle to beat Republicans and imperil the party’s hopes of recapturing control of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.

Crowley didn’t address supporters Tuesday night but was expected at a unity event later Wednesday.

“Now, David is focused on bringing people together, earning the support of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone who believes Wisconsin is at its best when we work together and deliver results," Crowley's campaign manager Garren Randolph said in a statement.

Hong’s loss in Wisconsin may have doused the momentum, but it’s far from snuffing it out. A democratic socialist coming close to victory in a battleground state sends a clear message: There’s unignorable angst among the party’s voters.

“We have built something that will change politics forever,” Hong told supporters as the outcome of the race hung in the balance late Tuesday. “The work we have done will be remembered forever. I know we don’t have the final results right now, but what I do know is we are ready to keep fighting.”

Her campaign manager Becky Cooper said after Hong conceded he race that she was “proud of the race we ran.”

“Our team campaigned clean, our souls are intact and we really made meaningful change for the progressive movement,” she said.

The Associated Press declared Crowley the winner once Hong’s concession removed the possibility of a recount in the exceptionally close race.

Hong could have requested a recount since Crowley’s margin of victory was less than 1 percentage point. But because it was wider than 0.25 points, Hong’s campaign would have had to pay for it.

Sanders and other top progressives stayed out of the Wisconsin race

Progressives had wanted to notch a clear win, but national progressive leaders, most notably Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sat out the race and did not endorse.

The movement is not entirely aligned. Not all candidates are democratic socialists or have endorsements from Sanders, but they are often tilling similar voter anger with politics and the party: over military aid to Israel, the amount of money wielded in campaigns, the Trump administration’s immigration raids and the inexorable cost of daily life.

In New York City in the June primary elections, two democratic socialist candidates and a progressive came out on top, booting two Democratic incumbents from Congress in the process. All three were backed by the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, himself a democratic socialist who framed the upsets as a question of electing “better Democrats.”

Democrats in Wisconsin are hoping to capitalize on low approval ratings for Trump in a state he won in 2016 and 2024 to retain control of the governor’s office and flip both chambers of the Legislature to earn full control of Wisconsin state government for the first time since 2010.

Wisconsin Democrats are hoping to unite after tight primary battle

Both Hong and Crowley said in the waning days of the race that they expected Democrats to come together and unite to defeat Tiffany, a congressman from conservative, rural northern Wisconsin.

“Our ultimate goal is to make sure we don’t have a MAGA extremist occupying the governor’s office,” Crowley said Sunday.

Democrat David Zimmerman, a 79-year-old retired industrial engineer professor in Madison, voted for Crowley on Tuesday. He said Hong’s chance of beating Tiffany in November “worries me a lot.”

“I think she’s going to have trouble winning,” he said.

The photo finish, and possible recount, is just the latest twist in a chaotic primary that saw two major candidates drop out amid scandals. Crowley had also dropped out in early July, but he got back in 10 days later with Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement.

Both of them crisscrossed the state in the final week, making the case that Crowley was the better matchup against Tiffany in a swing state known for close elections where independent, moderate voters often decide the outcome.

Democratic socialist shook up Wisconsin race, fueled by national movement

Hong, a single mother and former line cook, tapped into Democratic anger with the party’s mainstream and Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

The 37-year-old known for sprinkling her comments with profanity and leaning into her edgy and sometimes humorous social media profile excited the liberal wing of the party. Hong called for free childcare and healthcare and a moratorium on artificial intelligence data center construction. But she also wrestled with her past support for defunding the police, saying at the race’s only debate that she would not support cutting law enforcement funding.

She also drew criticism for past social media posts in which she called for canceling Thanksgiving because “we should stop celebrating colonialism” and disparaged Valentine’s Day as “another day capitalism tells you how to show love.”

Hong has since downplayed the posts as her attempt at making jokes.

Chaotic Democratic primary saw candidates drop, come back in

Evers’ decision not to seek a third term created an open race for governor that initially had seven Democrats file to run.

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez appeared to be making a move to consolidate mainstream Democratic support in July, but she dropped out in the middle of the month amid a campaign finance scandal. That led Crowley, who had dropped out a week earlier and endorsed Rodriguez, to get back in the race, this time with Evers’ backing.

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who was seen as an early front-runner after nearly beating Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, bowed out less than two weeks before the election amid questions about inappropriate behavior.

In one more twist, reporting the results of about 28,000 absentee ballots from Milwaukee was delayed until early Wednesday morning after a human error related to uploading the data, the city’s election leader said shortly before midnight Tuesday.

On a recent Monday morning in Braham, Minn., a local water operator made an unsettling discovery — the pump at the treatment plant wasn't working, threatening the flow of water to people's homes.

While investigating the root cause, crews took the plant offline, and the city urged Braham's 1,700 or so residents to conserve water while they drew on a backup supply stored in a local tank.

It only took a couple of hours for workers to restore the flow after taking manual control of the pump. The self-proclaimed homemade pie capital of Minnesota still hosted its annual Pie Day celebration at the Park Cafe just days later.

But what Braham officials quickly learned, after connecting with Minnesota state IT teams, was that they were not alone in the outages. The cause was a "coordinated cyberattack" against industrial technology nationwide, and cybersecurity experts and federal officials suspected Iran may be to blame.

It's nothing new. Adversaries, including Iran, have been targeting U.S. critical infrastructure for years, to steal data or cause disruptions. Once inside, they can ransom the data to make money or threaten access to and trust in critical resources, from water and power to transportation and their bank accounts. "Everything's connected to the internet in one way or another," Nate George, the mayor of Braham, told NPR in an interview. "It's not Braham in particular that's being targeted. It's the internet access points and the vulnerable technology," George, a U.S. Air Force reservist, continued.

While the hackers failed to compromise the water supply, they succeeded in inspiring headlines and provoking uncertainty. And the scope, scale and real-world impacts of the attacks, like the one in Braham, have been remarkable even to the experts.

"I can't recall a time when there's been this many targets at once with operational impact," said Rob Lee, the co-founder and CEO of Dragos, a cybersecurity firm focused on industrial technology. Lee told NPR he's aware of victims of this recent spate of attacks outside the water sector, as critical infrastructure operators tend to rely on the same technology. It's something Lee has been warning about for years. "This is pretty significant," Lee said.

Local and federal officials are looking to get their arms around what happened, help critical infrastructure operators secure their systems, reassure the public and prepare for the future for the more than 150,000 water and wastewater treatment systems in the U.S. — because the next wave of attacks could be worse.

"It appears this is a shot across the bow from Iran," Jake Braun, the former White House acting principal deputy national cyber director during the Biden administration, told NPR.

The timeline

Between July 26 and July 28, several local authorities in Minnesota let citizens know about problems at community water plants from Braham to Maple Plain, Minn., where officials declared a brief state of emergency before determining that "the immediate threat to public health, safety and welfare had been addressed."

Cities and towns across the country began to join their ranks. In Clayton County outside Atlanta, local officials issued a brief "boil water" advisory after a pump station failure was detected in the middle of the night. There were other outages in New Jersey and Michigan.

A cybersecurity information-sharing organization for the water sector, WaterISAC, was quick to convene a call for its 400 or so members across community water systems to disseminate intelligence from the federal government about the attacks. The EPA followed up with a publicly available webinar "to discuss an urgent operational matter dealing with cyber threats to the water sector."

The FBI then confirmed that at least seven states suffered similar attacks on water and wastewater facilities. Their investigation is ongoing.

The scope and scale could be much larger. Beyond Lee of Dragos mentioning victims outside the water sector, one state IT official who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to comment on ongoing investigations, said there's still concern about the transportation and energy sectors being impacted by these attacks.

"I think that we have to assume that this attack is national in scope," said Braun, now the executive director of the Cyber Policy Initiative at the University of Chicago.

Ties to Iran

The U.S. government hasn't officially said yet who they think is responsible for the latest attacks on the water sector.

But it wouldn't be the first time nation-states have disrupted critical services for geopolitical reasons. Starting in 2015, Russia notably launched a series of cyberattacks on Ukrainian power grids, plunging residents into darkness before ever launching a full-scale invasion.

Iranian-linked hackers have gone after U.S. power and water before.

For example, in 2023, an Iranian-linked hacktivist group broke into and defaced industrial machines in a water facility in Aliquippa, Pa. The machines, some of whose components were made in Israel, were manipulated to display anti-Israel messages during the war between Israel and Hamas.

The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has published a detailed advisory about Iranian-linked hackers looking for vulnerabilities in industrial machines like those found in the water sector. That advisory first came out in April, and the authors updated it just days before this recent spate of attacks.

Michael Crean of cybersecurity firm SonicWall tells NPR that his company has seen a recent "spike" in bad actors "scanning" the internet for vulnerable devices, "trying to find potential weaknesses out there and see how they can exploit it." He said the team saw a similar spike in March before hackers with ties to Iran compromised American medical technology company Stryker, which resulted in data destruction.

"We're seeing somebody run their proof of concept," Crean said. "You know, what is it that you can do to … scare the American people? Water is one of those things," he said. "It's a necessity of life."

Neither the Iranian government nor the well-known Iranian hacktivists groups, including one called Cyber Av3ngers, the group linked to the Aliquippa water attacks, has taken credit for the recent wave of water attacks.

However, one cybersecurity expert who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information told NPR there's intelligence linking the recent activity to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. "It was opportunistic, but was almost certainly a result of the war," the expert told NPR.

Braun, the former White House acting principal deputy national cyber director, has been working with hacking conference DEF CON and the National Rural Water Association to pilot a program called Project Franklin, bringing expert volunteers to rural water facilities to prepare for attacks just like this.

During an interview with NPR, he said there are several reasons Iran might want to launch these attacks beyond scaring the average American.

"Iran is targeting three things," said Braun. "Number one, it's showing the administration they can shut off water to our military assets … then, it's showing they can shut off the water to a key economic asset, our data centers," he said, referring to the engine behind frontier AI technology.

"Finally, it's in the middle of a war that the country is deeply divided over," Braun said. "It's telling the administration that they can undermine trust from the U.S. population that the U.S. government is capable of providing even basic services like water."

The view from local communities

Parts of the water industry have already been thinking about this problem. Last September, NPR interviewed Chris Hughes, one of two water and wastewater operators in Cavendish, Vt., who was part of Braun's pilot program. "It's scary that I'm the only door between you know, the Iranians, and our water system," Hughes told NPR.

Industrial operators like Hughes deal with all kinds of challenges, from storms and natural disasters to technical failures and squirrels chewing through wires. Experts like Hughes say it might be difficult for bad actors to actually "poison" the water remotely. But talking to cybersecurity experts opened his mind to all kinds of possibilities, like a hacker causing a pipe to explode by fluctuating the water pressure.

There's a lot of damage hackers could do, particularly if industrial machines are connected to the internet. Technology helps some operators monitor their systems remotely and become more efficient, but it can expose insecure devices to bad actors a world away.

"I've been in the field for 28 years, I love technology," said Brandon Huston of the Minnesota Wastewater Operators Association. "But I purposefully have not put that into my wastewater system," he continued. He said it would be too expensive in time, money, and expertise to keep those systems updated and secure. "Every city's got vulnerabilities," he explained.

Securing critical infrastructure is a unique challenge, because industries from water to power rely on the same aging, specialized technology that can't easily be replaced, patched, or secured, explains Patrick Gillespie, a security expert who specializes in what's called operational technology at GuidePoint Security.

Operational technology, or OT, monitors and controls physical processes in the real world, rather than software which runs virtual programs like email or word processing. "This technology is decades old," Gillespie said.

The water sector is no different.

"The equipment that opens valves and doses chemicals runs on small industrial computers," explained Mike Searight, the former chief information officer for the city of Waco, Texas and adviser for cybersecurity firm Elisity. These devices "can't be updated on demand," he said, "because the manufacturer has to certify the fix, [and] you may have to take the plant offline. Sometimes, no fix exists."

"Water isn't data. Breach a billing system and it costs money … breach a treatment plant and people get sick, or untreated sewage ends up in a river," Searight said.

What comes next

During this latest series of attacks on the water sector, bad actors appeared to go after low-hanging fruit. They targeted devices that were exposed to the open internet with no additional protections, devices whose default username and password were never changed, for example, information that's often leaked online and is easy to find or guess.

There are things operators can do to prevent these basic attacks, like changing the default credentials, taking their industrial machines offline, disconnecting industrial machines from the rest of their business networks, and installing strong access controls and firewalls.

But future attacks might not be so easy to detect, stop, and recover from.

U.S. national security officials have for years been warning about the threat posed by a Chinese-linked hacking group they call Volt Typhoon, a stealthy actor that's been burrowing into U.S. critical infrastructure and hiding there for years, maintaining that access to potentially wreak havoc in the event of a conflict like a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

It's something Braham Mayor George says he's thinking about, using the skills he's learned in strategic planning in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

"Chinese military officers have written playbooks about this," he said. "It's called unrestricted warfare…[It's] attacking the electrical grid, shutting down street lights, shutting down airports, things of that nature. It's all meant to not necessarily cause damage…but panic, or hype, or whatever's going to distract the government from what it's trying to do overseas," George said.

The recent attacks on the water sector could serve as motivation to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

"There's nothing that we can do to stop the threat actors from approaching and targeting assets in America any more than we can mitigate or stop a hurricane," said Kevin Morley, the head of federal relations for the American Water Works Association, or the AWWA, during an interview with NPR. "So we manage vulnerabilities and consequences … our ability to recover and respond to it will improve with time."

He said the quick response to the recent spate of attacks demonstrated the power of timely information sharing across federal, private and state and local partners. But the water sector needs more resources to improve its security baseline. In a letter to Congress after the nationwide attacks, the AWWA called for increased federal funding for cybersecurity across the sector.

More water operators could take advantage of intelligence sharing from WaterISAC, as the organization is working with the National Rural Water Association to make it easier and more affordable – particularly for those who serve under 10,000 people. "We're looking for new members to join, to be able to get the information from us before they see it in the news," Jennifer Lyn Walker, the director for Infrastructure CyberDefense at WaterISAC told NPR.

And Braun and his partners on Project Franklin are launching a new project called the Water Watch Center to give small utilities more support. Braun tells NPR their goal is to distribute resources through managed service providers, the third-party companies that already provide security solutions to the sector. They're also working with Vanderbilt University on a project funded by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a wing of the Pentagon that supports innovative defense research, to train AI agents to defend operational technology in the water sector from attackers in real time.

A question of federal leadership

Despite these efforts nationwide to get the right tools and education into the hands of water operators, the scale of the problem is staggering.

NPR reached out to representatives from state IT systems and cybersecurity and emergency response teams across the country. While not every office responded, a common theme of conversation emerged.

They say there's still a lot of work to be done to get visibility into local systems and hunt for hackers, and the chronically underfunded water sector in particular doesn't have the resources or the expertise to do it on their own.

Meanwhile, that problem has only gotten more challenging to deal with after the Trump administration slashed the federal cybersecurity workforce in a sweeping effort to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy.

"California avoided an impact in this instance, but that should not create a false sense of security," wrote a spokesperson for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services in response to questions from NPR. "Federal cuts to the nation's cybersecurity workforce and critical programs have weakened the partnerships, threat intelligence, and technical support that help protect essential services across the country," they concluded.

Braun tells NPR that ultimately, in order for efforts like Project Franklin to succeed at scale, there will need to be federal funding. "We can't fund it with philanthropy forever," he said. "We're designing it so the federal government can step in and fund it to deliver security everywhere."

Lee of Dragos thinks it will take more than a devastating cyberattack as motivation to solve this problem, given the number of times the sector has been targeted already.

"I think it's going to require a fully appreciated stance by senior government officials that we need to lead the discussion, regardless of local politics. And that's going to be hard," he said.

"How do you get out in front of people who are already upset about data centers, price raises, and feeling left out of an economy in a country that doesn't feel like it's for everybody … and say, hey, by the way, China, Russia, and Iran, they want to hurt your kids. We're going to ask you to raise your electric bill by ten cents, your water bill by 15 cents, and we're going to modernize our infrastructure and try to take care of people. That's hard," Lee said.

"But until that level of leadership is taking place, I don't think another attack is going to get us there."

Copyright 2026, NPR

An all-woman lineup will lead party tickets in November, with DFL and Republican voters opting for female candidates in the open governor’s and U.S. Senate races.

Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth will face off in the governor's race. Barring something unforeseen, the winner would be the state's first female chief executive. Minnesota is among 19 states to never elect a woman to that post.

And it's Democrat Peggy Flanagan versus Republican Michele Tafoya for U.S. Senate. The winner will replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith.

The four nominees defeated primary challengers Tuesday to advance to November’s ballot. The primary saw the largest turnout in modern history, topping 1 million votes overall.

The glass-breaking nature of this year’s campaign wasn’t lost on the victors.

Klobuchar told her supporters at a Minnetonka brewery that she’s a tested leader who concentrates on results. Yet she reminded the crowd of her accomplishment of being “the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota.”

Republican Lisa Demuth highlighted her own “first” at a campaign event on a St. Paul restaurant patio.

“When I was elected as minority leader of my caucus, being the first woman as a Republican to ever hold top office, and then the first Republican speaker as a female and a person of color – that is an honor,” she said. “But I look at Minnesota finally getting to have their first female governor. It's time.”

Fresh off wins, the two quickly reset focus on the November election – and on distinguishing themselves from their fall rival. Demuth described a possible Klobuchar governorship as more of the same in St. Paul.

“With Senator Klobuchar, she has been in Washington for over 20 years. She has been running for office and in office for 30 years,” Demuth said. “She would be no different than the administration that has currently led our state into the dysfunction that it is now.”

Klobuchar called out a group that spent millions to get Demuth over the top in the GOP primary, which has a Wisconsin manufacturing mogul as the main donor.

"And who does this guy want? He wants her in the governor's office,” Klobuchar said. “And while she may be this Wisconsin billionaire's choice, I want to be Minnesota's choice for governor."

Both Klobuchar and Demuth are steeped in the issues. So their contest could be one of the most policy-focused campaigns in recent history.

The Senate race will gain national focus with the two prominent candidates with distinctly different backgrounds and records.

Flanagan, who served as lieutenant governor under Gov. Tim Walz for two terms, won her party’s nomination after being severely outspent by U.S. Rep. Angie Craig.

At First Avenue, the landmark music venue in Minneapolis, Flanagan told supporters her campaign had succeeded despite a big fundraising gap.

“I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money. Well, guess what? The many just won,” Flanagan said to roars of approval. “Make no mistake about it. This didn't happen because of me. This happened because of you. This happened because you said Minnesota is not for sale.”

With the at times bitter primary out of the way, Flanagan said the focus would now be on taking on Tafoya. She was quick to link her to the man at the top of her party.

“Donald Trump has cost our state far too much already, and we are not about to give Donald Trump another loyal soldier like Michele Tafoya to take his orders and do his bidding.”

Tafoya, the former professional sport broadcaster, said Minnesota was ready for a political outsider.

“We traveled the state, and we said the same thing to everybody: that we love this state, and it's going in the wrong direction,” she said “And so we cannot continue to reelect the same career politicians that brought us here.”

Tafoya quickly turned to fraud — an issue she said would be central to voters. And one on which she said Flanagan was ineffective as the second in command in Minnesota.

“We are not going to reward this kind of egregious failure by giving these people a promotion,” Tafoya said.

She cruised to victory over a field that included former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze, who had the GOP convention endorsement, and Royce White, an ex-basketball player who was the Republican nominee for Senate two years ago.

Schwarze didn’t commit to supporting Tafoya after his loss.

“I do not think I will be involved in Republican Party politics if I don't win this,” Schwarze said, suggesting Tafoya was elevated by the Washington establishment rather than the party faithful.

In her concession speech, Craig said she would rally behind Flanagan. She said she was glad to see women succeeding across primary contests.

"It's a great damn day to see women running, even against each other," Craig said.

MPR reporters Clay Masters, Peter Cox, Cait Kelley, Ellie Roth and Catharine Richert contributed to this story.

The primary election is underway in Minnesota, and the results will determine what candidates will advance to the November ballot this fall.

MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with Abou Amara, a Democratic political analyst and Twin Cities attorney, and Preya Samsundar, another political analyst and GOP strategist, about why the primary serves as a good test run for the November election.

“This really could be anybody's game,” Samsundar said. “It really kind of depends on where Minnesota Republicans want to move forward with, and I think that’s what I’m really watching for tonight.”

“I’m going to be looking obviously in the second congressional district,” Amara said. “There’s a competitive primary on the Democratic side, and it has every strain of the Democratic Party that's represented in that race.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

The latest battle over the Democratic ideological divide this year shifts to the upper Midwest on Tuesday as nominating contests for governor in Wisconsin and U.S. senator in Minnesota pit left-wing candidates against more traditional ones.

In Wisconsin, state Rep. Francesca Hong, a self-described democratic socialist, is the front-runner for the party's nomination for governor in a swing state where winning the governor's mansion is central to Democrats' hopes for 2028 and beyond. In Minnesota, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is running for the nomination for an open Senate seat against centrist Democratic Rep. Angie Craig.

The left vs. center theme is on display in Democratic primaries in multiple states voting Tuesday, with other significant races in places like Alabama and South Carolina.

Here's what to watch Tuesday night.

Does the left keep surging in swing states?

Left-leaning candidates have consistently won primaries, capitalizing on Democratic voter frustration at party leadership. Most wins came in reliably liberal urban areas, ranging from New York Cityto Denver. But last week, progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed broke new ground by winning the party's nomination for a competitive Senate race in swing state Michigan.

Now Hong and, to a lesser extent, Flanagan are trying to claim even more purple terrain for the left.

President Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 and its state legislature has long been in the hands of the GOP, but Democrats have been bullish about reversing that trend. Hong has maintained a steady lead in public polls against Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, despite his endorsement by the state's current governor, Democrat Tony Evers. Hong is also helped by the presence on the ballot of multiple more traditional candidates who will split votes against her, including former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who dropped out of the race late last month.

Hong has a trail of controversial statements, including vocal support for defunding the police in 2020, a position she now disavows. Prominent Democratic strategists fear that she can win the primary by appealing to the party's base but is a risk in the general election. The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.

The stakes are high in the race for Democrats nationally, not just Wisconsin residents. Democrats are hoping to win control of the state legislature, and the governor's mansion would give them an ability to redraw Wisconsin's map to counter the edge the GOP built up in this year's mid-decade redistricting. Without that, their path to a House majority in 2028 becomes challenging.

Democrats will also likely need to win Wisconsin to retake the White House in 2028, and the governor will have a key role in certifying the winner of the election. In 2020, Trump tried to claim Wisconsin despite it being won by Joe Biden, only to be blocked in part by Evers. Tiffany, who has been endorsed by Trump, supported the president's attempt to overturn the election.

Democrats have reliably won Minnesota during the Trump years, but by shrinking margins, and Republicans believe they have a shot at claiming the open Senate seat given the primary battle there. Craig represents a swing district and has taken more moderate stances, and Flanagan has slammed her for being supported by establishment Democrats and being too accommodating to Trump, especially on immigration.

Lamont won as an insurgent. Now he's establishment

When the Democratic establishment was worrying about insurgents from the left a generation ago, it fretted about the man who is currently Connecticut's governor, Ned Lamont.

A wealthy former entrepreneur, Lamont was an obscure Greenwich selectman when he mounted a primary challenge against the state's senior senator, Joe Lieberman, in 2006. Lamont argued that the centrist Lieberman, who had been the party's vice presidential nominee in 2000, wasn't a loyal enough Democrat and leaned too far to the right.

Lamont won that primary, but Lieberman ran in the general election as an independent and kept his Senate seat. Lamont kept running for office and eventually was elected governor in 2018. Now 72, Lamont is being challenged from the left by State Rep. Josh Elliott, 41, who alleges the governor hasn't fought Trump hard enough and that the solidly Democratic state deserves better than Lamont's fiscally moderate approach.

For months, Lamont largely ignored Elliott and focused on burnishing his own image. But in a sign of a potentially tightening race, he's begun to advertise against his challenger.

An incumbent cast as too old and too tied to big money

Also in Connecticut, Rep. John Larson faces his first primary challenge after 14 terms in the House from former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin.

The race follows familiar contours, as Bronin, 47, argues that Larson, 78, is too old and too tied to big money donors. Larson argues his experience and seniority put him in the best position to deliver for his voters.

There is also a growing list of longtime Democrats upset by younger challengers. Will one more name get added on Tuesday night?

In a Wisconsin House district, a rematch is likely

Democratic voters in a swath of western Wisconsin are expected to renominate Rebecca Cooke to face two-term Republican Rep. Derek Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd District, setting up a rematch for one of the more competitive seats in the U.S. House.

In 2024, Cooke, a nonprofit executive and small business owner, lost narrowly to Van Orden, who was elected in 2022 and has been a devout supporter of Trump.

The district is a mix of Wisconsin farmland where Republicans have improved over the past decade and mini-metros with state universities giving them small but influential Democratic bases.

Cooke, of Eau Claire, faces Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge on Tuesday, but Cooke has Democratic institutional support, including from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Cooke has also raised roughly $8.6 million, far exceeding Berge’s roughly $729,000.

Van Orden is unopposed in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

In South Carolina, it's a famous name vs. experience

For a state with little mystery expected in November, South Carolina is again in the spotlight, this time holding primaries to nominate candidates for a special U.S. Senate election.

South Carolina voters voted on June 9 for nominees to statewide office, and then cast ballots in the June 23 primary runoffs for contests where no candidate reached 50% of the vote. And there were several, including GOP nominations for governor and nominations for several congressional seats.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death on July 11 at age 71 of an aortic rupture to his heart ensured South Carolina voters were not finished deciding who would be on the November ballot. Voters on Tuesday will be deciding who will succeed the four-term Graham as the Republican nominee in the GOP-heavy Southern state.

They will be choosing from Graham’s sister Darline, who was appointed to fill the vacancy by Gov. Henry McMaster and who has been endorsed by Trump, as well as U.S. Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman, former Rep. Mark Sanford and six other candidates.

If no one reaches 50 percent of the vote Tuesday — that’s right — there will be another runoff, this one on Aug. 25.

Stay up to date with our Politics newsletter, sent weekly.

Minnesota and Wisconsin hold primary elections Tuesday that will determine how Democrats define themselves heading into the November midterm elections.

Wisconsin is a swing state in presidential elections and Minnesota has been a stronghold for Democrats over the last two decades.

Journalists from across the NPR Network in Minnesota and Wisconsin are covering the races in their communities. Here's what we are watching.

Will Democrats in another Midwest swing state choose a far-left candidate?

A week after progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated a more moderate candidate in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, another test of progressive power will play out in a neighboring Midwestern swing state.

Francesca Hong, a 37-year-old democratic socialist, state lawmaker and chef, has been leading in the polls throughout much of the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. She's run an energetic grassroots campaign, buoyed by progressive voters inspired by her atypical political background and left-wing politics.

As her command of the field has held going into Tuesday's primary, some Democrats are consolidating around other candidates they view as more palatable to a general electorate.

Wisconsin's statewide races are typically decided by slim margins.

In the final weeks of the campaign, after some unprecedented turmoil caused another candidate to drop out, that alternative became Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

In July, Crowley dropped out of the race but reentered just days later with the backing of Gov. Tony Evers. It was a last-ditch effort to leverage the popular outgoing governor's political capital in favor of a more mainstream candidate.

Whereas Crowley's campaign had largely sputtered along for months, its revived form raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, outpacing Hong's haul.

Crowley, the first Black man to hold his position, is running as someone who can work across the aisle to get things done in Madison. He has repeatedly pointed to millions of dollars that national Republican groups spent propping up Hong, ostensibly in an effort to select an opponent they saw as beatable.

Hong, though not officially endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, is a member of the organization, and of the democratic socialist caucus in the Wisconsin state Legislature. She has called for "Medicare for All" and universal childcare, and for a moratorium on data centers, a key issue for midterm voters.

While Hong's base is strong, many polls indicate that at least a third of Democratic voters remained undecided in the campaign's final week. And the Democratic electorate has fractured even further with primary candidates dropping out well after early voting began.

A MAGA candidate focused on being 'Wisconsin's Dad,' not a Beltway insider

Whoever wins Wisconsin's Democratic primary for governor is all but certain to face off against U.S. Congressman Tom Tiffany, who faces only nominal opposition for the Republican nod.

Tiffany is endorsed by President Trump and has millions of dollars in his war chest and the backing of GOP megadonors. Tiffany's alliance with the president runs deep, as one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Congress who signed on to a lawsuit challenging former Democratic President Joe Biden's 2020 victory in Wisconsin.

But as Trump's approval has plummeted this year, amidst his unpopular war with Iran and the rising cost of living, Tiffany has worked to define himself as a Wisconsin everyman. In advertisements, Tiffany plays up his roots on a Wisconsin dairy farm and love of the Green Bay Packers and a brandy old fashioned. He pledges to bring common sense solutions to Madison.

And as the Democratic candidates moved through a chaotic primary, he has presented himself as a foil to the "craziness of the left."

The race for Wisconsin's highest statewide office is expected to be hotly contested. Locally, Democrats have their hopes set on "trifecta" control of state government. That would mean holding onto the governorship and flipping the state Senate and Assembly.

Republicans are eager to keep their majorities in the Legislature, and to win back control of the governor's office.

After Operation Metro Surge, which approach will Democratic voters choose to challenge Trump?

President Trump's immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities earlier this year has shaped Minnesota's competitive Democratic primary for an open U.S. Senate seat.

Last year, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith announced that she would not seek another term and that set up the state's first open U.S. Senate race in two decades between U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

In the months after Smith's announcement, Minnesota became a flashpoint in the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration with protestors resisting deportation actions around the city. Those confrontations with federal officers ultimately turned deadly when Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by federal agents just weeks apart.

Those events set up a race that has been defined by Operation Metro Surge. Flanagan regularly brings up a vote Craig made in Congress for a Trump-backed immigration policy.

"We can stand with the immigrant community, and not just when it's politically expedient for us and that should be the expectation we have of our leaders," Flanagan told a crowd of supporters at a St. Paul bar on Saturday.

Flanagan has campaigned saying that she would be more forceful than Craig in pushing back against the Trump administration if she was elected to serve in Washington.

"I've heard from you all across the state of Minnesota that you are sick and tired of nibbling around the edges, and you are ready for big, bold change," Flanagan said at a debate hosted by Minnesota Public Radio News last month. "Part of the reason that we're here is because too many Democrats have been weak."

Craig said she regrets her vote for the GOP-led Laken Riley Act, which allows for detention of people without legal status who are charged with crimes ranging from minor theft to assault on law enforcement. And rejects the idea that she has taken a moderate approach in pushing back against Trump as a member of Congress.

"This is an existential moment in time," Craig said to Minnesota Public Radio News. "The only way we stop Donald Trump and Republicans is by winning elections. I am in the best position to win this statewide election."

And she says Operation Metro Surge has made her more resolute.

"It has made me more committed than ever to standing up to the Trump administration's policies as it relates to immigration enforcement," Craig told NPR after a campaign organizing event on Saturday. "[I'm] more committed than ever to getting comprehensive immigration reform done in this country."

Meanwhile, Flanagan does not refer to herself as a Democratic Socialist but has the endorsements of progressive U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She also picked up the endorsement of her state's Democratic Farmer-Labor Party in May.

Craig has a fundraising advantage over Flanagan, according to a recent review of FEC filings by OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign spending.

The winner will face whoever wins the Republican primary between sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya, Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze and former NBA basketball player Royce White.

A staunch Trump ally is shaking up Minnesota's GOP gubernatorial primary.

Gov. Tim Walz abandoned his bid for a third term in January, leaving Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar as the only formidable Democrat running to replace him. Yet, there's a more competitive primary on the Republican side.

MyPillow founder Mike Lindell has been leading in the polls after he picked up the endorsement of President Trump. Yet businessman Kendall Qualls picked up the endorsement of state Republicans at their party's convention earlier this year.

The Republican Party of Minnesota is questioning whether Lindell has satisfied residency requirements for candidates.

A former party leader resurfaced allegations that Lindell physically abused a former girlfriend in a column published in the state's largest newspaper. Lindell has long denied that and said his residency is in order. He alleged the party leaders want him to lose.

"It's a coordinated attack," Lindell told reporters. "It started when I got the president's endorsement

Minnesota Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth is the only Republican running with political experience and she's led the GOP field in fundraising.

Minnesotans have not elected a Republican for the state's top office since Tim Pawlenty was re-elected in 2006.

But Republicans see an opportunity as Trump and his allies have targeted Minnesota because of allegations of widespread fraud in state and federal social services.

Minnesota Public Radio's Dana Ferguson contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Minnesota’s already heated U.S. Senate race promised to get a whole lot hotter after Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won a competitive DFL primary race and Republican Michele Tafoya prevailed on the GOP side.

Both parties are bearing down for an expensive, intense race over the next three months.

Flanagan rode a liberal wave of support Tuesday to the DFL Senate nomination, aiming to become the first Native American woman to hold the office.

Flanagan, the current lieutenant governor, defeated a better-funded U.S. Rep. Angie Craig in the primary. Flanagan aligned with progressive figures like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the race, saying bold change within the party is essential.

Outside groups came in big for Craig, which Flanagan used as a call to stir her grassroots base. Flanagan had the DFL convention endorsement.

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A Flanagan win in November would make history. There have been four other U.S. senators with Native American heritage. All have been men. Flanagan is a White Earth Band of Ojibwe member.

In a victory speech at the Minneapolis music venue First Avenue, Flanagan began with a “Miigwech,” the Ojibwe phrase for thank you.

She said the “many just won” — reprising her theme that the race was about the “many versus the money.” She extended a hand to Craig supporters.

“I will work my tail off to earn your votes and most importantly your trust because I need you in this fight. Minnesota needs you in this fight. Because Donald Trump has cost this state far too much already,” Flanagan said, labeling Tafoya a “loyal soldier.”

Tafoya, the former sports broadcaster, won her party’s primary over several candidates, including one endorsed at the May party convention.

Tafoya cruised past former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze, former basketball player Royce White and others on her way to the fall ballot. She was the favored candidate of national Republicans who are aiming to put the Minnesota race on the map in a year when the party is playing defense elsewhere.

"I am running to call balls and strikes to say, ‘I think the president is right on this one. I think the president is wrong on this one,’" Tafoya told MPR News in an interview after the race was called.

The president's immigration crackdown is one issue Tafoya said she disagreed with the president on.

"I did not like the way that that program rolled out, and we had a couple of tragic deaths," Tafoya said. "That is something that, fortunately, when Tom Homan came to town, seems to have been ironed out to a certain degree."

Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006, but Tafoya hopes to appeal to enough independents to lift her in November.

After eight years in office, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith will give up the seat at the end of this term. It amounts to the first open Senate seat race in Minnesota in 20 years.

Smith’s DFL Party has seen a bruising and expensive race to decide who will get the spot on the fall ballot. More than $30 million was spent in the race between Flanagan and Craig, with the final tally expected to push even higher.

Their showdown has echoes of the progressive versus moderate primaries in many Democratic races throughout the country.

Flanagan attracted the endorsements of prominent liberal wing figures. Craig staked out a more-moderate lane.

In defeat, Craig pledged to do what she could to help put Flanagan over the top this November.

"I have said since day one that my top priority is making sure that we beat MAGA Michele Tafoya and hold this Senate seat in November. In that spirit, I just called the lieutenant governor to congratulate her on her hard-fought victory, and to offer her my full and complete support going forward," Craig said.

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The race largely focused on immigration and their response to the winter ICE surge.

Flanagan pounded on the fact that Craig voted for the Laken Riley Act, which gave the Trump administration greater power to detain immigrants suspected of crimes. It’s a vote she expressed regret for this spring.

Craig hit hard on fraud. She said Flanagan is vulnerable because she is part of Gov. Tim Walz's administration, which has struggled to contain financial abuse in social service programs.

Both hammered on the other’s campaign financing. Flanagan loudly touted her refusal of money from corporate political action committees but got help from a group that took them; Craig benefitted from outside backing to a greater degree and had to defend past donations.

Four other candidates vied for the nomination but ran lower-profile campaigns: Kurt Michael Anderson, George Kalberer, Peter Murgic and Billy Nord.

Schwarze left the GOP convention in May with the state party's endorsement in hand. But he struggled to raise money and garner attention.

The candidate getting more of both is Tafoya, who collected millions of dollars and gained backing from several leading senators and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

On Tuesday night, Schwarze said he wouldn’t support Tafoya as the party nominee.

“If you put Michele Tafoya and Angie Craig in a bucket and just pulled out their names, you wouldn't actually know which one's the Republican,” Schwarze said just before polls closed.

There was also White — the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024 — known for hard-line MAGA stances and a confrontational approach.

Tafoya's opponents have both criticized her on abortion — she does not support a ban on it — and her past remarks indicating support for red flag gun laws to remove firearms from people deemed a risk to themselves or others.

Tafoya’s allies say she’s the only one who can elevate the race on the national map and give the party a place to go on offense in a year when it is on defense elsewhere.

The GOP primary also included a handful of others: Bob Carney, Jr., Cynthia Gail, Ahmad Hassan, Joyce Lacey, Patrick Munro and Tom Weiler.

The November ballot will also include two other candidates, Independent Marisa Simonetti and Libertarian Rebecca Whiting.

It’s possible Minnesota could have two new U.S. senators come January if Sen. Amy Klobuchar wins in the governor’s race. That would knock the state way down the seniority list in a chamber where longevity means influence.

MPR News host Clay Masters contributed to this story.

Minnesota appears headed toward having its first woman in the governor’s office after a pair of primary elections Tuesday night.

Amy Klobuchar’s bid to trade her capitol office in Washington for one in St. Paul moved forward when the U.S. senator notched a decisive primary victory and the DFL nomination for Minnesota governor.

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth overcame a pair of weighty endorsements of her rivals to win the Republican nomination for governor.

Demuth, who was preferred by more-mainstream Republicans and major party donors, defeated Kendall Qualls and Mike Lindell in a competitive primary. Qualls came in with the GOP’s convention endorsement and Lindell had the backing of President Donald Trump.

Demuth is the first Republican in decades to defeat a party-endorsed candidate in a governor’s primary.

“It's going to take all of us pulling together,” she told cheering supporters at a watch party Tuesday night. “But this is the change that Minnesota, the start of the change that Minnesota is so desperate for."

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Barring something unforeseen, Minnesota will have its first woman as governor. If Demuth prevails, she would be the first person of color to be governor as well.

Klobuchar had only nominal opposition in her primary race. The Associated Press projected Klobuchar’s win within 30 minutes of polls closing.

She used a victory speech to describe herself as a trusted figure known for delivering for Minnesota.

"I will measure our success as a state by result,” she said. “My goal is to keep what's right and fix what's wrong."

Klobuchar, a four-term senator, has amassed double digit wins in each of her past statewide races but the consequential governor’s race could prove closer.

The November winner will succeed outgoing DFL Gov. Tim Walz.

Prominent candidates in both parties hoped to land a job that Democrats have held since 2011.

The job will come with its share of challenges. While stable now, the state budget is headed into rougher waters and a possible deficit looms. Persistent fraud problems have shaken trust in government and created worries among legitimate providers and recipients of social services. Continuing clashes with the Trump administration over federal funding, immigration and more have also put a squeeze on Minnesota.

A vast field of Republican candidates entered the race to take on Walz last year. Then he upended the race by exiting in January, saying he wanted to put his full focus into combatting the fraud problem that had also complicated his political prospects.

Klobuchar renewed Democratic hopes of extending their historic run in the office — the longest in party history — by saying she would pursue the governor’s residence. Her stature in the party kept most party challengers out of the race, leading to her DFL endorsement at the May state convention

The primary ballot featured six other DFLers who lacked the money and public recognition of Klobuchar: Thomas Evenstad, Bill Gates Jr., Kobey Layne, Ole Savior, Po Vang and Mohammad Wazwaz.

She has laid out plans to fight fraud in state government, make healthcare more affordable and boost development in rural communities.

Republicans had a more competitive contest.

Party delegates endorsed Qualls, a businessman, at their late-May convention, promoting his status as a government outsider in a year when many voters are fed up with people in office.

Just days after the convention, however, party leaders gave a new lifeline to defeated candidates by releasing them from commitments to drop out because of issues with its electronic voting technology at the convention.

Lindell and Demuth filed to run in the primary.

Republicans historically stick with their endorsed candidate in primary contests, a streak that goes back three decades.

But Qualls has found more difficult terrain since gaining that convention backing. Lindell picked up President Donald Trump’s endorsement in July, causing some Republicans to reassess their choices.

Demuth has made the case that she has gone toe-to-toe with Walz in state budget negotiations and leading a tied House. She said that experience made her uniquely qualified for the job.

Other Republicans on the ballot were: Loner Blue, Raul Estrada, John Krhin and Ross Nova.

The November ballot will have a Green Party candidate in Steven Young.

Eighty-two businesses across northeast Minnesota are asking state leaders for help after wildfires and the closure of the Boundary Waters muffled the region’s peak summer tourism season.

The group sent a letter on Thursday to Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota lawmakers, calling for economic relief for businesses impacted by the fires. The letter comes as a special legislative session appears unlikely. The businesses are hoping state leaders will find another way to provide aid, rather than waiting until the Legislature reconvenes in January.

Businesses in St. Louis, Cook, Lake and Koochiching counties are asking for grants of up to $150,000 for businesses that have lost at least 20 percent of their gross revenue this summer, and for the state to get that money out the door quickly.

Elli Paragis knows well that the wildfires have been a particularly hard blow for businesses in Ely, where the summer tourism season is short and heavily dependent on visitors to the Boundary Waters. She is general manager of Paragis Northwoods Company, an Ely outfitter and retail business her parents started in 1979. She said the three weeks that were lost are normally the busiest of the entire year.

Paragis said the retail end of her business lost 44 percent of its sales during that period, and the outfitting business was almost completely lost.

“It’s really important that we are able to keep our heads above water,” Paragis said. “I’m not just concerned for my own business, but the businesses around the whole region.”

The economic effects extend beyond outfitters. Abby Dare owns and operates The Meadows Art Gallery and Studio in Ely, which opened in 2024. She said the fires have been a reminder of how interconnected the local economy is.

“If people aren’t coming up and going on guided trips, or if people aren’t coming up because they can’t get to their cabin, then I would expect to have fewer customers at my shop as well,” Dare said.

That ripple effect is already affecting workers, she said. Dare recently spoke with a guide who lost work because trips into the Boundary Waters were canceled. The guide was considering getting a job in another industry and potentially moving away from Ely altogether.

“Losing that three or four weeks of work has a huge impact on some of these people,” Dare said.

The letter also asks that if lawmakers don't meet in a special session, they make assistance a priority when they return in January. Walz said a special session won’t happen, and Dare said waiting months for help could be difficult for businesses and workers.

“We don’t all have the cushion to be able to do that,” she said.

Paragis said the region also needs to think about how it can prepare for future fire seasons.

“Fire seasons are going to continue to become longer as the climate gets warmer,” Parigis said. “So, as a community, we need to keep brainstorming on how to ensure we can stay afloat in the future years.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation between MPR News host Nina Moini and Ely business owners.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

President Donald Trump on Monday announced he was signing an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held belief that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.

The order will recommend separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different shots administered in separate visits, and direct the nation's health department to improve vaccine research, says a White House fact sheet, first reported by The Daily Caller.

Trump also said in an event at the Oval Office on Monday afternoon that one-year-olds should have their shots separated out into five separate visits, though it wasn't clear whether he was talking about all the vaccines they receive or specific ones.

Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Childhood vaccines — and how and when to give them in combination — go through rigorous studies, and safety tracking continues for years as the shots are used.

Separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines for children, which Trump said he wants kids to receive, are not currently available in the U.S.

“Today’s executive order does not substitute the longstanding process through which vaccine recommendations have historically been developed — an independent, transparent evaluation of safety, effectiveness and disease burden by scientific experts,” Vaccine Integrity Project’s executive director Michael Osterholm said in a statement in response to today’s White House executive order on vaccines.

Even as the order calls for revised vaccine recommendations, states, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order will advise states with school vaccine mandates to consider updating their laws to reflect the administration's recommendations, the fact sheet said.

Last December, Trump ordered HHS to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising U.S. guidance accordingly. The department responded by cutting the number of vaccines it recommends for every child, a move that has since been blocked in court.

In the months leading up to Monday's announcement, Trump’s administration had largely pivoted away from talking about vaccine policy in favor of less polarizing topics like healthy eating and efforts to lower drug prices ahead of November’s elections. Polls show most Americans still support school vaccine requirements, though Republicans are less likely than Democrats to see them as important.

Still, Trump has been fixated on connecting autism to vaccines. He has recently ramped up pressure on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to identify the cause of autism, something Kennedy had pledged to do with new research unveiled last year. Trump publicly prodded the health secretary for an update on autism research in a Cabinet meeting last month.

“How are you doing on the autism research?” Trump asked.

“We will have an answer for you,” Kennedy said.

Scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism.

Monday's order comes as school years are starting around the country and the nation contends with a measles outbreak that experts say could result in the U.S. losing its measles elimination status.

“Parents deserve clear, evidence-based guidance about how to protect their children, not competing recommendations issued through political processes,” Osterholm said. “When families receive conflicting messages, confidence in vaccination suffers, and children ultimately bear the consequences.”

Across the border, voters in Wisconsin are also heading to the polls Tuesday. And there, the primary for Governor is getting nationwide attention.

On the Democratic side, the field is crowded with four candidates. On the Republican side, U.S. Congressman Tom Tiffany is seen as the presumptive Republican nominee. They are all looking to take over from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers , who is leaving office.

Joining Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to breakdown the race is PBS Wisconsin senior political reporter Zac Schultz.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Skirmishes within Minnesota’s political parties reach decisive moments Tuesday with primaries that will determine the November ballot choices for governor, U.S. Senate and other downballot offices.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and are open until 8 p.m. or as long as voters in line by the time polls are supposed to close.

Minnesota has an open primary, which means voters don’t have to be a strict partisan to participate. But for a ballot to count, only vote in one party’s primaries on a single ballot.

Here are some of the races primary voters will decide:

Governor

Amy Klobuchar, a household name in Minnesota politics, is the clear favorite on the DFL side.

While she has some primary opposition — Kobey Layne, Ole Savior, Mohammed Wazwaz, Bill Gates Jr. and Thomas Evenstad are on the ballot — those candidates haven't made the four-term senator sweat much.

Klobuchar has raked in money and, throughout the primary, focused on the Republicans who she might face in November.

On the GOP side, there's a bit of a crowd of contenders.

Businessman Kendall Qualls has GOP endorsement, which is usually the gold standard in a Republican primary. But he's trailed in fundraising and polling.

Lisa Demuth is the lone candidate with public office experience. The Minnesota House speaker has deep connections and the most money.

There’s also Mike Lindell. The MyPillow founder rose to prominence by vocally and financially backing conspiracy theories that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. That loyalty earned Lindell a Trump endorsement. He’s led in several recent KSTP polls. But the state Republican Party has been on the attack against Lindell, questioning his ability to win in November.

Also listed on the GOP ballot are Loner Blue, John Krhin and Ross Nova.

U.S. Senate

This is for the seat of retiring DFL U.S. Sen. Tina Smith.

Two DFLers are in a knockdown contest: Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and U.S. Rep. Angie Craig.

Their race echoes themes in Democratic primaries elsewhere — a progressive versus moderate showdown.

Flanagan is aligned with the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren movement. Craig has the backing of more moderate Democrats like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Craig has had more money spent on her behalf. That, in itself, has been a prominent campaign issue. It’s expected to be a close race.

Four other DFLers are on the ballot: Billy Nord, Peter Murgic, George Kalberer and Kurt Anderson.

Like the race for governor, Republicans have three prominent candidates vying for the seat and some lesser-known ones.

Adam Schwarze, a former Navy Seal, has the GOP endorsement but is an underdog and has lagged in polling.

Schwarze has struggled to keep pace with former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya, a favorite of the national party establishment and the clear money leader.

There's also former pro basketball player Royce White, the party's Senate nominee two years ago. He's leaned into hard-right rhetoric and is known for his confrontational style.

The other options for voters are: Bob Carney Jr., Cynthia Gail, Ahmad Hassan, Joyce Lacey, Patrick Munro and Tom Weiler.

State Auditor

This is another statewide office race that has competition on the GOP side. The two leading candidates are Braham Mayor Nate George, who won the party endorsement, and Scott Jensen, a family doctor who was the Republican nominee for governor last time.

Will Finn is on the ballot as well.

The winner will face DFLer Zack Filipovich and the Forward Independence Party’s Jay Reeves in November.

Secretary of State

Republicans are the only party with a nomination contest.

Former lawmaker and ex-judge Tad Jude has the GOP’s endorsement in a race against Wendy Phillips.

They are vying to take on three-term DFL Secretary of State Steve Simon, the Green Party’s Seth Kuhl-Stennes and Libertarian George Tangen in the fall.

Attorney General

Two-term DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison is after another four years. He faces Minneapolis lawyer David Madgett in the Democratic primary.

Minneapolis attorney Ron Schutz is the Republican candidate for November.

Congress

DFL U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar has DFL challengers in the 5th District again, but unlike past years her primary has been relatively sleepy. There are four challengers: Julie Le, Abena McKenzie, Latonya Reeves and Nate Schluter.

One of the more closely watched races is in the suburban-exurban 2nd District. Three current and former state legislators are after the Democratic nomination: state Rep. Kaela Berg, state Sen. Matt Klein and former state Sen. Matt Little. The winner will face another lawmaker, Republican state Sen. Eric Pratt for the open seat in November.

Up north in the 8th District, former federal worker Trina Swanson and reality TV personality Luke Gulbranson want the Democratic spot in a fall race against GOP U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber. A third candidate, John Munter, is also on the ballot.

An uphill fight awaits the winner. Stauber is the heavy favorite against Anthony Hamilton in a GOP primary.

And in the southern 1st District, either high school teacher Jake Johnson or small business owner Alex Eaton will have a crack at the GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad in a race Democrats feel they could make into a competitive one. Finstad isn’t likely to be derailed for his party nod in a primary challenge from Gregory Goetzman and Oliver Morlan.

Minnesota Legislature

Eleven incumbents in the Minnesota Legislature are facing challengers within their party this primary.

In the Senate:

• GOP state Sen. Paul Utke vs. state Rep. Mike Wiener in District 5

• GOP state Sen. Nathan Wesenberg vs. Deb Holthaus in District 10

• GOP state Sen. John Jasinski vs. Crystal Alan in District 19

• DFL state Sen. Susan Pha vs. Nehemiah Garley in District 38

• DFL state Sen. Ron Latz vs. Lynette Dumalag in District 46

• DFL state Sen. Omar Fateh vs. Jeanelle Austin and Brenda Short in District 62

• GOP state Rep. Josh Heintzeman vs. Matthew Eric Zinda in District 6B

• GOP state Rep. Tom Murphy vs. Craig Horlocker in District 9B

• GOP state Rep. Dawn Gillman vs. Wayne Olson in District 17A

• DFL state Rep. Hulda Momanyi-Hiltsley vs. Richard Klatte and Wynfred Russell in District 38A

• DFL state Rep. Mohamed Noor vs. Abdurrahman Mahmud in District 60B

There are open seats, too, where primary voters will have choices to make.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected President Trump's 15-point peace plan for Gaza, saying Israeli forces will not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is “genuinely disarmed.”

“We are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament,” he said at a meeting with government ministers Sunday.

Netanyahu's comments come just over a week after President Trump announced that his Board of Peace had reached a deal with the Palestinian militant group to completely give up its weapons.

“Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” Trump wrote on social media in late July.

Under Trump's proposed peace deal, Board of Peace officials said Hamas and other militant groups would hand their arms over to a vetted international policing force.

But a senior Hamas official previously told NPR that the group would only hand over their weapons if Israel withdrew from parts of Gaza first.

The latest dispute follows an initial ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, alongside Trump's broader 20-point Gaza plan.

That first phase of the peace plan halted major fighting, provided for the release of remaining hostages in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, increased humanitarian aid, and called for a partial Israeli withdrawal. More contentious issues — including Hamas's disarmament and further Israeli withdrawals — were left to later negotiations.

Trump's new 15-point roadmap, published on July 31, sought to move those unresolved issues forward. It envisioned Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas's disarmament as part of a phased process, rather than requiring Hamas to fully disarm before Israeli forces began pulling back.

The Board of Peace had already backed Netanyahu on that key point, saying on Aug. 3 that Israeli forces would not withdraw beyond the Yellow Line until Hamas's weapons were fully decommissioned. Netanyahu's decision to emphasize his demand again comes less than three months before Israel's Oct. 27 election, with polls showing his coalition is at risk of losing its majority.

The apparent stalemate comes as Israel still controls roughly 70 percent of Gaza, according to Palestinian officials and aid agencies.

Hamas released a press statement Sunday saying it was still committed “to the roadmap agreed upon” in the agreement.

NPR's Anas Baba contributed to this report from Gaza.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Smokes 4 Less in Fargo is stocked full with a rainbow of colorful products like vapes, pipes and bongs. But one shelf, deep in the store, is completely bare.

It’s been that way since last Wednesday, when North Dakota’s ban on kratom took effect.

Kratom is a substance derived from the leaves of a Southeast Asian tree. Sold in a wide range of products such as pills, beverages and powders, people use it recreationally and to help with pain. Some also say it helps treat their mental health problems.

But kratom-related calls to North Dakota’s Poison Control tripled last year, from seven in 2024 to 22 in 2025, according to reporting from the North Dakota Monitor.

North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong and Attorney General Drew Wrigley announced a ban on kratom products Aug. 3, citing the “addictive dangerous, and potentially deadly nature of kratom.”

Other states, including Kansas and Tennessee banned kratom products outright earlier this summer. Minnesota’s new regulations on kratom products raise the purchase age from 18 to 21.

The executive order highlights the state’s different approaches to products derived from natural kratom leaf and synthetic, concentrated products containing higher doses of a compound called 7-hydroxymitragynine or 7-OH.

The governor signed an emergency rule from North Dakota’s Board of Pharmacy that classifies 7-OH as a Schedule I drug, echoing a temporary federal action from the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The rule is valid for 180 days and triggers a rulemaking process. At the same time, the sale, use and possession of all kratom products has been banned by an emergency order that is effective for thirty days, according to Armstrong.

A special legislative session is set for early September where lawmakers will propose and vote on permanent regulation or prohibition.

Lawmaker reactions in Fargo

Fargo-area lawmakers said they’ve been hearing a lot from their constituents since the ban’s announcement.

“I hear from constituents or other people that live in my state that tote the benefits of kratom to PTSD or other mental health issues,” said Rep. Austin Foss, a Democrat in Fargo. “But then on the other side of that, I've had people reach out to me saying really terrible stories, [of] their son overdosing on kratom and how it is a very addictive drug and how it should be banned.”

Fargo lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said some regulation is necessary, as kratom has largely been legally available without regulations or age restrictions.

“The ban should be for the synthetic version,” said Sen. Michelle Powers, R-Fargo. “All synthetic versions should probably be banned and put an age limit on the purchasing of [natural] kratom.”

But both Foss and Powers disagreed with the governor’s emergency order and said the issue could’ve been tackled during the next regular legislative session.

“There is really no emergency on it, as far as I'm concerned,” Powers said. “We have far more deaths from alcohol than we do from kratom, and we're never, ever, ever going to ban alcohol.”

But Kyle Davison, a Republican representing south Fargo, thinks it was the right call. He said he and other lawmakers still need more education and information before making a decision on how to regulate kratom.

“He's putting a short-term stop to it … so that we can wrap our arms around it,” he said. “I think we'll learn together during the session.”

Regardless of what regulations lawmakers decide on, they might not be as effective in Fargo since people over 21 can easily head across the Red River to buy or consume Kratom in Moorhead, Minn.

“Whether we ban it or not might not matter in the long run,” Foss said.

It's a longstanding dynamic, Powers said, that has also surfaced around marijuana and alcohol sales, which Minnesota and North Dakota regulate differently

“Minnesota, a long time ago the alcohol was sold at 19, and everybody went over there,” she said. “It's nothing new under the sun. People will go wherever they can get it. We can't regulate every state.”

Foss said he’d support some sort of collaboration with Minnesota lawmakers to compromise and align laws across border cities, but thinks it's unlikely that’d ever happen.

“Historically, we have not been very cooperative with the state to the east of us, Minnesota, because a lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle really see us as an anti-Minnesota state,” he said.

And that might be a boon for shops on the Moorhead side, even if they don’t sell Kratom. Gabriel Hernandez is general manager at Beezwax Dispensary in Moorhead and said he’s expecting more marijuana customers because of North Dakota’s kratom ban.

“The majority of my customers come in, they say they're trying to treat pain,” he said. “So I absolutely think anyone who's trying to treat something non-medically, we’ll see more business from them, especially if their preferred becomes unavailable, i.e. kratom, which is very popular in the area.”

Aside from whom to vote for, a source of consternation for some voters this year is the administration of the elections themselves: Will they be secure and will there be any interference?

The questions are relevant given a retreat in federal security support to states and suggestions by President Donald Trump that federal authorities be more assertive in watching over voting activities usually left to state and local authorities.

The Trump administration’s rollback of election security could cost Minnesota up to an estimated $250,000 to make up the difference, according to Secretary of State Steve Simon.

For the last decade, the federal government has provided extensive support to states, including security briefings and cybersecurity testing. Since Trump resumed office, key agencies have been slashed, the administration sued dozens of states for sensitive voter data and officials have been reluctant to tamp down concerns about federal agents showing up at polling places.

Elections experts warn all of it could have a long-term negative impact and inflict damage on what has been a collaborative effort historically.

States have constitutional authority over elections and have successfully run elections without significant federal support in the past. However, Simon said the 2016 presidential election was a “watershed” moment that required the federal government to step up election support.

“You could divide modern day election administration into two halves, the world before 2016 and the world after 2016,” Simon said. Russia “tried to literally hack and get into elections-related databases.”

“Fortunately, in the case of Minnesota, all the defenses held, everything worked, no one got in, but it really was a wake-up call for the whole country and the elections community,” Simon said.

On his way out of office in January 2017, President Barack Obama designated elections as critical infrastructure. That meant the federal government would prioritize protecting and supporting elections just as it would hospitals, water systems and the power grid.

The first Trump administration ramped up election cybersecurity support for states and the Biden administration continued that trend.

“I give credit not just to the tail end of the Obama administration, I give credit to the first Trump administration,” Simon said. “They were really active and effective partners for states in administering elections.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA — housed within the Department of Homeland Security — began to function as a hub of election security information. States could report suspicious or malicious activity and CISA would warn other states to be alert.

Ryan Macias is an election technology and cybersecurity expert who teaches at the University of Minnesota and previously consulted for CISA.

Macias said the information sharing allowed CISA to “take a holistic approach of: What are the real threats going on across the entire election infrastructure? And then be able to disseminate that back out to be proactive in advance of something spreading.”

Macias said CISA would also provide states with guidance on how to prevent, identify and respond to both physical and cyber threats to polling places or elections websites.

No more briefings

Since Trump returned in 2025, nearly a third of CISA’s workforce has left or been pushed out and the agency has pulled back support for programs that provided cybersecurity support to states. Another key elections agency lost its bipartisan commissioners.

Elections officials say states are increasingly being left to fend for themselves.

“There was never a memo saying ‘henceforth we're not going to be doing intelligence briefings,’ we just haven't gotten any intelligence briefings,” Simon said.

Simon said the prior CISA briefings provided important information about both the absence of threats and the existence of possible threats. While limited in what he can divulge, Simon said he received “actionable intelligence” and advice.

Simon said CISA also hasn’t provided cybersecurity testing or tabletop exercises to game out security scenarios like it used to.

CISA did not respond to a request for comment on what services the agency is or isn’t currently providing to states.

Simon and Macias said states can do some of their own cybersecurity testing. But it puts an added strain on state budgets.

“It's definitely not dire that the federal government isn't providing these resources because elections officials are still doing all of the security measures that they should be doing to protect the midterms,” Macias said.

“It just means that they are having to scrape from their own budgets or redirect assets and resources that should be going elsewhere,” Macias added.

More concerning to him is the lack of a birds-eye-view of the country’s entire election system that could proactively identify vulnerabilities in the system.

Jennifer Morrell, an elections audits expert who ran local elections in Utah and Colorado who also previously worked with CISA, also worries about the lost community network built up over the past 10 years.

“I understand completely states now wanting to own their own penetration testing or network monitoring,” Morrell said. “But I do think losing that human connectedness and that sort of learning and sharing of best practices. I think that's hard for an individual state to replace on their own.”

Last month, Trump fired the remaining commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission — another key federal agency that provides election support and that has distributed election and voting system funds to states for decades.

Fired Commissioner Thomas Hicks said the agency can run without commissioners in the short term, but will be hobbled in the long term.

“If we had seen this done in another country, of the president removing folks from an election body, would we be quiet and we’d say, ‘Oh, that’s OK. They don't really do anything.’ I would say no. I would say that this is something that should cause alarm to people,” Hicks said. “Especially three months before a major election.”

“[Trump] has advocated for new processes, but not put additional funding in his budgets for those things. And I think that that's something to truly look at,” Hicks added.

Morrell said it all makes for a dramatic shift from a collaborative relationship to an oppositional one.

“Whether it's been the call for immigration agents to be at the polls, raids that we've seen of local election offices, threats of criminal prosecution for election officials not turning over voter files. Even if these don't materialize, it's creating this just unneeded stress and anxiety for election officials,” Morrell said.

ICE at the polls?

For months, Democrats have pressed the Trump administration to say whether armed federal agents would be deployed to polling places. Federal law prohibits federal officers from interfering in elections and bans agents from being deployed “anywhere an election is held.” Minnesota law also restricts law enforcement access to polling places.

The Department of Homeland Security has said it has no plans to target voting locations, but some Republicans argue agents are needed to prevent noncitizens from voting, despite instances of that happening being extremely rare.

Adding to the confusion, federal officials have made conflicting statements. Some, including Trump, have failed to definitively answer whether federal agents would be sent to polling locations this year.

“I think there's real reason to believe that it could intimidate voters or have a chilling effect on voting if people do expect this federal presence to materialize,” Morrell said.

Simon said he’s often asked: Will ICE be at the polls? So far in Minnesota, the answer is no.

Simon said his office has been coordinating with local elections officials and law enforcement to make sure everyone is on the same page about what is legal and what is not.

Simon also pointed to Minnesota’s robust mail-in voting system as an option for any voter who doesn’t want to go to a polling place for any reason. “You can vote from your kitchen table,” Simon said.

Minnesotans have already been voting early for months in the Aug. 11 primary election and turnout has been high.

Minneapolis Director of Elections Katie Smith said at an early voting location in July that things have gone smoothly so far for people casting ballots in person and by mail.

“We haven't heard of any, you know, threats or anything specific around this election. The polling places are safe,” she said.

Smith has encouraged people to get involved in the process if they have concerns about the security or conduct of elections.

“We're hearing a lot about how do I get involved? How do I do my part? How do I protect the process this year?” Smith said.

Smith said she tells voters they can contribute to the democratic process by voting, volunteering as poll workers, translating for friends, or giving rides to the polls.

Election administration expert Morrell said though elections offices across the country are stretched thin, she continues to be impressed by their work.

“We're actually seeing all these great things where they know they're under scrutiny, they know they're under this microscope,” Morrell said.

“So offices all across the country, but especially in Minnesota, are really digging in on physical security and chain of custody, and thinking about how they're limiting access to sensitive areas.”

Voters in Hennepin County will narrow down a crowded field of candidates for county attorney Tuesday.

Five candidates are running to succeed Mary Moriarty, who announced a year ago that she would not run for a second term.

State Rep. Cedrick Frazier won the DFL endorsement for the position earlier this year. He previously worked as a public defender and a city council member in New Hope.

Frazier told MPR News he’s “the most well-rounded candidate,” vowing a focus on violence prevention and prosecuting ICE agents who commit crimes.

Former U.S. Attorney Anders Folk is also pitching himself as an experienced candidate. He previously worked as a prosecutor in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and in the military.

Folk is one of several candidates who told MPR News he wants to depart from Moriarty’s work.

“We need a change of direction at the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office,” Folk said.

Moriarty faced criticism during her time in office for plea deals offered to defendants, and for alleged poor relationships with police departments.

Candidate Diane Krenz, who has previously worked in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor, also said she’s running to bring the office in a new direction.

“The Hennepin County Attorney's Office needs to refocus on its core mission, promoting public safety by holding violent and repeat offenders accountable,” Krenz told MPR News.

Ramsey County assistant attorney Hao Nguyen is also seeking the seat. He said his position in a prosecutor’s office has prepared him for the work he wants to do in Hennepin County.

“We’ve lowered gun violence, reduced auto theft, cut racial disparities, and more, all through hard conversations and collaboration,” Nguyen said.

Rounding out the field is local attorney Matt Pelikan. He, too, told MPR News he wants to rebuild trust in the office.

“Hennepin County needs a County Attorney who can bring safety and justice together,” Pelikan said. “That means taking violent crime seriously, protecting constitutional rights, supporting victims, rebuilding trust, and holding power accountable — whether on a street corner, in a boardroom, or wearing a badge.”

The two candidates receiving the most votes in the primary will continue to the general election in November.

Hennepin County voters can compare candidates and find more information with MPR’s voter guide.

As Minneapolis leaders start the city’s budgeting process for 2027, Mayor Jacob Frey said he’s taking a close look at the police department after it overspent by millions of dollars in the past two years.

But Frey said the answer isn’t spending less money — it’s budgeting for the spending.

The police department anticipates coming in $23 million over budget this year, after similar overspending in 2025. That money went to overtime pay for officers, which Frey said was needed, particularly after the Annunciation shooting and during the federal immigration enforcement surge.

“These are really not optional decisions when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it,” Frey said. “If we don’t approve these overtime hours, we’re not able to do the basic work that the city demands.”

Minneapolis City Council members have pushed back on that argument. Several cited the overspending as a reason they hesitated to approve renominations of former Police Chief Brian O’Hara and Public Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette.

And several council members criticized the department’s use of overtime during the federal immigration enforcement operation. The department spent millions on overtime, including keeping officers on standby. Council members repeatedly asked O’Hara why officers didn’t do more to intervene between residents and immigration agents.

Frey said his administration is looking to craft next year’s city budget differently. The 2026 budget included about $2.3 million for police overtime, but Frey said that was “never anywhere close to accurate” — city and police department officials knew spending would exceed that.

The department anticipated covering extra costs with vacancy savings — money budgeted for officer pay, but not spent, because the department has fewer officers than allowed in the budget.

But this year, Frey said, hiring went up. Those officers don’t take shifts right away — instead, they start training. Frey said the result was more officers on payroll, but not enough on the streets to curb the need for overtime.

“There was a flood of applicants,” Frey said. “We did not anticipate such an increase in the number of officers that we got.”

Frey said he wants to keep hiring. The current budget allows for 731 officers — the minimum allowed under the city charter. But the department is still below that number. Frey said he hopes to get to 731 officers in 2027.

And Frey said he’d like to hire beyond that number, too — closer to the 888 sworn officers that the department had at the start of 2020. City administrators say the cost of supporting that many officers would be comparable to the city’s current spending on police overtime.

On Thursday, Frey said he hasn’t made any decisions yet on how much money to request for police in the next budget.

“We still can't entirely predict what those overtime hours can be. We can get more in the realm of reality, though,” Frey said.

He said spending less on overtime, or hiring fewer officers, aren’t acceptable solutions.

The budget could already be tight. The city will have to account for a deficit that could total up to $33 million. In a presentation to the city council earlier this year, city finance staff cited personnel costs increasing, with revenue staying flat or decreasing. That could mean tax hikes for residents — and layoffs of some city workers.

Frey is expected to propose a budget Wednesday. He and the council will have to settle a final budget before the end of the year.

The Senate in an overnight vote Saturday approved a short-term measure to fund federal agencies into early December and avoid a potentially chaotic government shutdown during the middle of campaign season.

The late-summer action on a funding fix is unusual. Normally, Congress waits until the final days or hours of a funding deadline to pass short-term patches, but this time senators acted nearly two months before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The 90-6 vote showed lawmakers are still smarting from the two historic shutdowns that occurred this past year and want to avoid another before voters go to the polls. The funding bill also included a delay to a federal hemp ban, which threatened to upend Minnesota’s $200 million cannabis market.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune wanted the funding dealt with before senators went home for the next five weeks to focus on their reelection campaigns and other matters. It got caught up with other issues that pushed votes into the night, but the bill had broad bipartisan support. The House will also have to approve the measure when members return from their August recess before it can go to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature.

The bill generally funds the federal government at current levels though Dec. 11, but includes a variety of exceptions that senators negotiated with the White House.

Democrats secured language to ensure no money could be transferred to the Border Patrol. They also rejected the White House's request of $1 billion for early work on a new "Trump-class" battleship that the administration announced on Dec. 22.

"The only person who wants these golden ships is Donald Trump so he can slap his name on them," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said.

Hemp provision became a point of contention

The bill also includes language delaying a national ban on most intoxicating hemp products. That one-month delay prompted outrage from some Senate Republicans who say that too many such products are falling into the hands of often unsuspecting children. The packaging of the products often relies on bright colors and intentionally mimics popular snack brands to attract consumers.

Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., said that since 2017 there has been nearly a 10-fold increase in cannabis-related emergency room visits by minors in his home state.

"This is a public health crisis that deserves this Senate's immediate attention," Budd said. "Our children should never be the testing ground for an industry willing to exploit a loophole in federal law for profit."

The original ban was included in a funding bill from November 2025 passed to end a 43-day government shutdown, the longest in history. Minnesota’s DFL delegation, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, voted against that bill while Republicans backed the ban.

Klobuchar said during her Senate floor remarks Minnesota had not had the same experience as North Carolina.

“I note in my state we have safety rules in place that have worked very well,” said Klobuchar, who is running for governor. “The product is taxed. We have not had issues with it since we put those rules in place.”

The hemp industry said the delay buys time for Congress to craft legislation that protects hemp farmers and businesses while also putting in place safeguards to protect children.

Trump himself has called Budd to discuss the issue, though the president did not specifically ask the senator to drop his effort, Budd's spokesman said.

"Senator Budd had a friendly phone call with President Trump discussing the legislative efforts regarding THC," said spokesman Christian McMullen. He said the senator outlined his concerns about "any delay to closing the hemp loophole."

Budd tried to strip the hemp delay from the bill, but the Senate turned aside his effort.

The bill delays a Trump administration rule on grants

Democratic lawmakers, along with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also got language in the bill that would block, for the duration of the funding patch, new regulations on federal grants. The regulations would require a senior political appointee to review grants before they are awarded to ensure, among other things, that they advance the president's policy priorities. Democrats worry it's an effort to kill grants destined for Democratic-leaning states.

"They are not interested in making our tax dollars work better — they just want them to work for Donald Trump," said Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The White House Office of Management and Budget says its effort is about improving accountability to ensure taxpayer dollars aren't wasted or misused. The issue is sure to be a topic of future negotiations on a full-year spending measure.

But Collins said the vast majority of the nearly 500,000 people and groups weighing in on the rule are opposed to it.

"I don't think in my time that I've been privileged to serve in the Senate that I have ever seen a proposed rule generate that many negative comments," Collins said.