Poll: Minnesota Attorney General Ellison down 2 points in re-election bid

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(Legal Newsline) – The Republican challenger leads Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison by two percentage points as the Democrat seeks a third term, a recent poll has found.

It is the first out of five polls conducted by SurveyUSA with Ron Schutz in front of Ellison, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who started as AG in 2019. Schutz is a lawyer and a board member for the Center of the American Experiment who has also served as chair for the state Commission on Judicial Selection.

Ellison, who has spent the past couple of years challenging the policies of President Donald Trump, possibly lost some popularity thanks to a Somali family’s fraud scandal. Several members of it have pleaded guilty after allegedly taking $14 million from a federal child nutrition program.

Before those accusations came to light, the family was at a meeting between Ellison and members of the Somali community. One of them mentioned “putting our dollars in the right place” and “supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests.” Ellison responded, “That’s right.”

The man then gave Ellison the maximum $2,500 donation. Ellison has denied wrongdoing and returned the money to the Department of Justice. SurveyUSA’s first poll still had Ellison ahead by seven percentage points in June, but the Republican tied him in the fourth and took the lead in the fifth, 45%-43%.

The Democratic Attorneys General Association has labeled Schutz “too extreme for Minnesota” because of his support of Trump administration policies. One of Ellison’s current court fights is with the Department of Justice, which has sued Minnesota to stop Ellison’s climate change lawsuit.

Trump has opposed such cases, which seek to hold major oil companies liable for the “public nuisance” of climate change. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments next month as to whether they impermissibly seek to regulate federal emissions standards and disrupt the worldwide energy market.

The AG’s website says Ellison has sued the Trump administration 73 times, over issues like birthright citizenship, gender-affirming care for minors, wind energy and FEMA funds.