A Break Down on Wisconsin, Special Election in SD 6, and the MN U.S. Senate Race

[00:00:12] Welcome to The Break Down with Brodkorb and Becky, a weekly podcast that breaks down politics, policy, and current affairs. I'm Becky Scherr. And I'm Michael Brodkorb. We are here today to hit on a variety of topics of the past week, and to help us break them down, we are pleased to have Will Davis from the left and Preya Samzendarr from the right. Will and Preya are going to help us get into what happened in the election in Wisconsin earlier this week. We will then break down the status of the special election in SD 6 to replace Justin Eichhorn.

[00:00:39] Then we will move on to the U.S. Senate race here in Minnesota, discussing some updates on DFL candidate Peggy Flanagan and GOP candidate Rice White. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. We are excited to welcome back once again Will Davis and Preya Samzendarr to do a bit of a roundtable here on all sorts of topics of the past week or two. And to kick things off, we're going to jump right into the Wisconsin election that was earlier this week.

[00:01:06] Big election, first major battleground state election since the 2024 general election, presidential election. Now, while we know that these Supreme Court races are technically nonpartisan, they're really not. We know what went down here. Susan Crawford, the nonpartisan but supported largely by Democrats, beat the supported by Republican nonpartisan Brad Schimmel by 10 points.

[00:01:32] So this was a pretty big, decisive win for Crawford in this state. This race also comes down to the most expensive Supreme Court race in U.S. history. It surpassed $98 million in spending. Breaking that down a little bit, Schimmel and his allies were just under the $50 million mark. Crawford and her allies were just over $40 million.

[00:01:53] However, when we look at spending by the actual campaigns themselves, Crawford's campaign spent $22, almost double what Schimmel and his campaign spent at $11. Priya, I'm going to start with you. You spent your lovely birthday, happy birthday on Election Day in Wisconsin. Tell us what you saw, what you heard, what you know. Thank you. First of all, it was a lovely time in Wisconsin for all to see.

[00:02:20] I think that what we saw in Wisconsin, there's a couple of things, right? First of all, voter ID passed with overwhelming support. We saw a couple of different things. We saw a candidate for public instruction. She was a bit more on the moderate front, running against an incumbent Democrat, overperformed Schimmel by quite a bit, about five points ahead. She ended up still losing despite having Republican support.

[00:02:48] We did see Democrats move, trending in a positive direction. Sheboygan County executive won. A Democrat won that seat. That's typically a Republican seat. I think at the end of the day, there's a couple of things that just happened there. I think part of it is potentially an Elon Musk thing with him just being so prevalent in state in the last few days, whether or not that had anything to do with it or the Trump factor to some extent.

[00:03:15] We did see, or I don't know if they would call it quite yet, record turnout. But we did see folks coming out for the spring elections at a clip of 75% of what the November election was, which is unheard of, especially in rural areas. So I think folks are still trying to dissect exactly what happened and why things happened the way that they did.

[00:03:39] But ultimately, I do think that this is going to be one that folks are dissecting as a lessons learned issue for the future. Now, Will, as Priya mentioned, turnout was pretty massive, especially for a spring off-year election. 2.3 million voters turned out. Still shy of the 3.4 million we saw in a 2024 general. But again, for April or end of March, I guess, spring election off-year, huge.

[00:04:07] We saw Milwaukee running out of ballots, them having to print more, run more around. Just massive. Tell us what you're hearing on your side of the world when it comes to how things shook out in Wisconsin. Yeah, I think so. I have two big takeaways. And one thing I would point out is the victory the other day, the margins match almost perfectly up with the statewide Supreme Court win the Democrats had in 2023.

[00:04:31] So one of the big takeaways for me there is I think it shows the fragility of the Trump sort of crew. I think when he's not on the ballot, people don't seem to show up. If he's not there, Republicans don't have the fire to show up and vote en masse. I don't think they have the unity. And I also think this was a reflection of people may like Trump, but they don't like his policies.

[00:04:58] I think the stuff he's doing and having Elon Musk and Turning Points and all those folks in Wisconsin, I do think hurt them quite a bit. And I think Dems just did what Dems do. They organize, they show up, they door knock, and that works often. It seems to not do great when Donald Trump is on the ballot, unfortunately, but it seemed to go really well the other night. Michael, what's your take on both turnout spending and just the overall outcome?

[00:05:24] Here, I'm going to defer great insights from Prey and Will about their perspectives. My general read of it is I'm looking for tea leaves. I'm looking for little snippets to show intensity, motivation for Republicans and the enthusiasm that exists. And right now, I think, I don't know. I don't know how much we think. My concern is people may read too much into Wisconsin and the aspects of it because based on what Will said and some of Prey's comments,

[00:05:52] I hope this isn't an overanalyzed cycle. I think, I remain convinced of this, that the traditional rules of politics don't apply to Donald Trump. And what that means is that this upcoming election cycle should be a tough year for Republicans. I think that is still a possibility based on, we can go through some more stuff when we talk about candidates and other things, particularly in Minnesota. But on the economy, that's where I think things are, that's where I'm really looking for numbers.

[00:06:20] Yep, Democrat won the race. Republicans put a lot of effort into it. And so there should be some metrics concerns about the fact that the Democrats still won. But bottom line, I think there's still a lot of, we're still in some uncharted waters as to what's going to be coming into this election cycle. And I'm going to be looking for more data points before I lay down the marker as to what I think is going to happen.

[00:06:43] When we do look forward, because obviously midterm elections, it's no surprise, is often more favorable to the party that is not in the president's office. Especially when we now look at D.C. with Republicans holding the trifecta out there. We've seen Republicans underperforming in special elections in Florida. We saw Stefanik pulling back her name to make sure that she's maintaining her seat. It's clearly something there is some worry about.

[00:07:09] But, Michael, to your point, and Will, I'm going to throw this to you, to Michael's point, do you think it would be too much to look into this as anything of an anomaly or just more kind of trending along those traditional midterm ways than go? And I think what Michael said is right to overanalyze a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April of 25 is probably, we can't take away too much from it.

[00:07:36] But I have been of the opinion since election day that at least as far as here in Minnesota, what happened in November was they won, but it was a worst case scenario in a lot of ways. They did not get a sweeping victory in the Minnesota House. They did not get a sweeping victory. Angie Craig won by 14 points. And then here comes a bunch of statewide races in a midterm with Donald Trump where people are clearly not very thrilled with what's happening.

[00:08:02] I would be very nervous if I was a member of the Minnesota Republican Party and I had that kind of bearing down on us. I agree. You're one of our comms pros on the Republican side have been doing this a long time. I found it interesting when we looked at kind of the Musk versus Trump aspect when it comes to Wisconsin. We saw a lot of anti-Musk ties. Elon Musk was there. They were definitely doing a lot on that side.

[00:08:28] But it seemed as though the Democrats focused more on Elon Musk than Donald Trump because, again, Donald Trump has won the last two elections in Wisconsin. Talk to us about how that feel was on the ground. Was that noticeable that it was more anti-Musk than anti-Trump? And is that something that you, as we move forward, would expect to see, especially in some of these battleground states where Musk is the boogeyman, but Trump we're going to be a little bit more tempered about?

[00:08:57] Absolutely. The ads towards the end against Schimmel were not even really about Schimmel. They were about Elon and they were focused on Elon and Doge and all these different things. I think Democrats right now are really trying to make Elon the big boogeyman. Whether or not that sticks, I don't know, especially since news coincidentally popped up yesterday that Elon will be leaving his role and moving into a more supportive capacity. I mean, take that for what you will. I think you just get a sense.

[00:09:26] And I had this conversation before I left yesterday is that voters like to they don't want their billionaires seen or heard. They just want their dollars. We see that the Zuckerbucks, Mark Zuckerberg had spent money on election integrity stuff, throwing money at places in Wisconsin. Mark Zuckerberg wasn't seen or heard, but we knew his dollars were going towards different things.

[00:09:53] Folks didn't have a problem with that. We constantly hear the Soros argument, right? Millions and millions of dollars. But you don't hear Soros. You don't see Soros. He's just operating in the background and allowing his money to do his talking forum. Whereas with Elon, there is a very physical public face about it, right? With his dollars comes the attachment that on the other side of that dollar is Elon holding onto it with a camera opportunity. And it was very clear that folks were not a fan of that.

[00:10:22] Priya, that is an absolutely fantastic point. I'm really I was like you made a lot of good points, but that's probably one of your best. That's fantastic. That's a fantastic point. I'm dead serious. This is why it's great having smart people on and a dummy like me just gets to listen because that's a great point. I think Elon was called the richest man in the world the other day by was it Forbes magazine, I believe. And what was Wikipedia? This is absolutely. So one of the things I would say about this, what Trump did with Elon is brilliant.

[00:10:49] If you think about it, he did all these Republican priorities massively slash all these government programs and employees and staff and everywhere. Now, Republicans have always wanted this. They have not done it because it's unpopular. And now Trump isn't getting blamed for it. Look with the ads in Wisconsin, this billionaire who people don't like anyway is going to take all the heat for it. Now the human shield has been exhausted and Trump cast it aside and he's just going to keep moving on. And I think we got played a little bit by the Elon thing.

[00:11:19] I have to say, I don't know that he was this mastermind who did all this stuff. I think he was simply a human shield who people didn't really anyway. And he's taken a lot of the lumps for Donald Trump. I would like to keep the focus on Trump and his administration is doing this stuff more than Elon. But, you know, I blame you for getting played. Thank you. On behalf of Americans, I blame you for the people getting played. So accept your responsibility. Well, I want you to go into that a little bit more. You are one of the Minnesota comms experts on the Dem side.

[00:11:49] Talk to us about that fine line there, right, of tying it to the Trump administration. But in particular, in some of these battleground states and battleground areas where Trump did obviously come out successful in 2024. And obviously walking that line, there is some success in having Elon be this ultimate boogeyman. I think we can all agree, whether you like him or hate him, Trump is a mastermind in how he conducts himself a lot of the times. And I think that is a really good point of Musk being a shield for him.

[00:12:19] I think that is no coincidence. I think it's probably very well thought out. But walk us through that fine line of how Democrats navigate through, in particular, some of the popular Trump areas of being too anti-Trump when it's so easy to just be anti-Musk or others. Yeah, it's really tough. I think we have to walk that fine line. Having a new boogeyman is always a good thing. I think Priya would agree with this as well. Railing on Donald Trump for another four years just wasn't going to work.

[00:12:49] It's not going to happen. So I do think there's a lot of value. And I think this is a good example of the value of having Elon Musk. But in the long term, we're not going to be able to do that for four years. And we have to pick our spots. So I think as this sort of rage subsides a little bit, because that's just what the American public does, we have to refocus, that this stuff was done by Donald Trump, who appointed Elon Musk in the first place, unelected, to have all this power and to make all these cuts.

[00:13:15] And whether it was him who made the final say or not, hopefully the blame people remember who is ultimately responsible for all these things. And I hope Democrats are able to have that sort of nuance and walk that fine line. As an ex-bogeyman, I understand how the importance there is to have boogeymen. And so I agree with you. You're still a boogeyman, Michael. Come on. I see Twitter. Michael, I do want to put you on this, too, because as a Republican for Harris, as somebody who is not the biggest Donald Trump supporter,

[00:13:46] the walls things, too, played out. I got to throw this to you sometimes. But chat a little bit more about that, about how you think that Republicans and Democrats alike, as we head into the midterm, kind of message around the popularity and lack thereof on both sides, right? There's some folks on both sides that love and hate Donald Trump. Yes, there are. And I think, first of all, I think this discussion in the last couple minutes is probably the smartest analysis I've heard about the Musk factor,

[00:14:15] about billionaires, and also what Will has said and what the combination of you all said. This is honestly my take, and I don't think it's going to change much, is that the normal rules just don't apply. And so right now I think what Democrats are doing is they're using every tool that they can to mobilize and energize themselves. And Elon Musk is one of them. Donald Trump's negatives and his positives don't fluctuate that much. And they really don't.

[00:14:41] And I think how people feel come next November, and again, probably more than any episode, I'd like you guys to push back if you disagree with me. I know you're not shy about that, but my sense is, and my kind of framework coming in is that it's going to be the economy stupid next election cycle. And that's where people are going to be at. And if 401ks are continuing to tank, if we're playing these games with the economy, that's honestly what I think is going to be a larger driver.

[00:15:08] What I compliment the Democrats for is them finding, like getting extra oxygen if they're like out in space and they need to get an extra tank of oxygen or in the bottom of the ocean. The Democrats have found a way to fuel their intensity. And Elon Musk is that foil in which to do that. And Democrats are great about getting that extra oxygen, getting one of those energy bars that they need to get to the next election cycle.

[00:15:32] Because my sense is if the economy doesn't turn around and people don't start feeling better with Trump's attention to the economy, that's where I think the problems come. But again, I defer to others to push back and agree or disagree with what I just said. If I could just jump in real quick. So the economy is obviously going to be a huge thing. It always is. Never fails. But there's more personal things happening with what Doge and Elon Musk have been doing. The man who is the head of, it's not Alzheimer's. It's a serious disease. I can't remember.

[00:16:02] He was just fired. And they're basically scrapping all the research for brain cancer. Yeah, brain cancer. Think about all the people out there who've had family members that suffer from that, family friends, right? Think about these folks in rural places, western Colorado, Minnesota, where all this national forestry is. And not only are people losing their jobs there, but these are people who help the firefighters keep the forests clean so that when wildfire starts spreading, people are going to remember these things. People are going to remember all sorts of people in their lives.

[00:16:32] I know at least four people who just lost their jobs just like that for absolutely no reason because of just like seemingly blind cuts to all these programs. And I think the personal aspect is really going to come back to bite Republicans as well. If I can just jump in here for a quick second. I think we also have to remember that the spring elections just took place four months after the November election.

[00:16:58] And whether you agree with it or not, with the decisions made by the Trump administration, and a lot has happened in like the first 90 days, the first 100 days here. A lot has happened.

[00:17:39] Is some of this personal stuff going to feed into it? I'm sure to a good degree, maybe. But it's not going to have as big of an impact as what folks are going to be experiencing in those last two weeks versus the last two years. And I think one of the things that Republicans are also going to need to do, because I do tend to agree about the short attention span.

[00:18:05] I think obviously midterms often struggle with the enthusiasm of things from the party in power. I think that's what we see when you look at some of the numbers of where Crawford really was successful in the Madison, Milwaukee areas and where Schimmel underperform in the driftless rural areas.

[00:18:25] And that's something that where Trump really has a lot of that power that we just don't necessarily see from a lot of other candidates on the right that can pull out those Trump voters who will live and breathe and die to vote for Trump, but not necessarily show up for others.

[00:19:11] And that's nothing new. Midterms are going to be just beating the dead horse are going to be really interesting when it comes to the economy, because while trade and tariffs and everything look so poor now, I am an economic optimist that I do think that there is in the next 18 months the time to flip that around and have the economy spring back in a really real way has a lot of potential. But I'm not an economist, so what do I know? But it's going to be a conversation we'll continue to have. Yeah, Michael.

[00:19:39] I'm just glad we're sticking it to Madagascar. I'm finally glad that they're getting their just desserts. Those lemurs from Madagascar that I saw once on an IMAX, I'm glad that entire part of the world is getting finally the just desserts that they deserve in this kind of tariff war. Don't forget the Antarctic penguins as well. They're paying huge tariffs. Oh, God. Can I tell you something quick about penguins? I would go crazy if I met a penguin. I love penguins. I love the formality of them. They wear tuxedos.

[00:20:09] If I was any animal, I'd be a penguin. I love penguins. You can meet them if you go to a zoo in Illinois. Oh, my God. Don't tell me. I'd get so excited. I'd go crazy. I want to keep us moving here. I think we could talk about midterms and our speculation for the entire episode. But let's go on. We've got lots to hit.

[00:20:27] So as we all know, there is going to be a special election in Senate District 6 due to the resignation of Justin Eichhorn, who is facing all sorts of really serious charges for his involvement and meeting up, planning to have sexual relations with a minor. Lots going on there. We'll come back when there's more court cases of what's actually going on in his hearing. But I want to talk about the seat in general.

[00:20:54] So right now, as it sits, there is one Democrat, Denise Slippy, who is on the ballot. The other Democrats, DFLers, withdrew after the endorsement, which Denise won. There are eight Republicans on the ballot. So I'm going to get to that in just one moment. I want to mention first on the Republican side, there is not going to be an endorsement. So they are going straight to the primary, which is on April 15th. The special election itself is on April 29th.

[00:21:21] So we are just around the corner from this primary and the eight Republicans running. Sorry if I butcher some of the last names here, but I'm going to do my best. We have Carrie Heintzman, who is the wife of state rep Heintzman. And so that would be an interesting, I think, our second married couple up at the Capitol, if she is successful. We have Josh Gazelka, who is the son of former majority leader from the Republican Senate caucus, Paul Gazelka.

[00:21:50] We have Jennifer Carnahan, former MNGOP chair and former wife of the late Jim Hagedorn, Congressman Jim Hagedorn. We have Steve Kateru. We have Doug Kern. We have John Howe. We have Angel Zierden. We have Matthew Zinda. As you can see, I put it together in the order of, I think, maybe what we see of kind of relevance of candidates of what I've been reading and seeing and hearing and the notability or name recognition of candidates.

[00:22:17] But I am curious of what you know, what you hear. And, Will, starting from the Dem side, who are you most scared of? Is there one? Anything can happen in a largely red area. But what do you know when we look at these Republican candidates? Yes, I will say it's actually interesting. When you look on the Republican side, there is only one candidate from the Itasca side. Everybody else is from the crowing side, which is interesting, right? And you wonder if they're going to start chipping away at each other's votes.

[00:22:47] And in a situation like that, anything can happen. And as I'm a DFLer, I don't have a horse in this race. Excuse me. But I think there's a lot of interesting candidates here. So we have a magician who goes by Hudson, the master magician. We have the son of a former state senator who finished behind Undecided at the state convention when he ran for governor.

[00:23:12] We have Kerry Heintzman, who was at Jan 6 in D.C. in January 6, 2001. We have Doug Kern, who is Action for Liberty related. And of course, we have a very experienced former state party chair. And there's a I will also mention Dr. John Howe, who different from the former Redmayor. I was going to ask. It's not the. It is not. OK. It's not John Sterling Howe. It's not. I think the woke mob I've got to this John Howe, he is very opposed to raw milk being consumed and sold.

[00:23:40] I see one experienced person in there who's going to know what she's doing up at the Capitol. And I think she's too conservative for the district. I think she's too close to Donald Trump and perhaps too smart for that role. I really hope she's not elected Jennifer Carnahan. Priya. Priya, any thoughts on the race in general of Republicans taking the seat or any of the candidates on the ballot? Priya.

[00:24:09] First of all, I like to say I solely blame Will Davis for certain people getting into a certain race up here in the special year. This was all proof that manifestation is a real thing. That is all I will say on that front. I think the reality is, at the end of the day, this is a seat that Trump won, I think, by 27 points. Or a seat that Trump won by 27 points.

[00:24:34] Eichhorn won well within double digits back when everyone thought he was a normal human being and not a disgusting pervert. And I think that Republicans are primed well, no matter who they elect, which pains me a little bit to say, will be the next sitting Republican in St. Paul.

[00:24:53] It's up to folks during this primary to choose wisely and to choose well and make sure that they do all of their homework before choosing a candidate on the 15th. Michael, your take on any of these candidates or if we're going to be, are we going to see a lot of spending there, campaigning? It's obviously a really short time crunch here. Yeah, I'd like to just get a quick take. Does anyone think that this is a potential Democrat pickup?

[00:25:22] Candidly, I know there's an amount of spin we all engage in, but I was just curious if anyone around the Horn thinks that this is a seat that legitimately could get picked up by the Democrats. I don't. If one person gets in, I think there's a chance. It makes it out of the primary. I think there's a chance. Yeah, I think it's obviously a huge long shot. Anything can happen these days. It's going to be a very steep hill to climb for sure.

[00:25:45] So I think for our listeners, I think what we're all talking around is the possibility of one of the Republican candidates being the former chair of the Republican Party, Jennifer Carnahan. And I think we all want to break this down a bit and want to remind our listeners that I am represented by counsel, multiple lawyers. And so I feel very comfortable with my understanding of the First Amendment and what I'm legally allowed to say here. I think that I think what I my read of the race is this is a good Republican seat.

[00:26:13] But if Jennifer Carnahan is the nominee, I think that there will be a lot of spending put in because she has tremendous baggage and and baggage isn't a legal term. It's my description within the rights of the First Amendment to say that Jennifer Carnahan is a would be a very flawed candidate.

[00:26:29] And also, I think that in terms of the dynamic of this seat, here's one of the things that I would say when you have these kind of safe seats, what you're looking for is someone who can represent the district and obviously then help be a good messenger and carry the message and be a good relationship builder within the caucus.

[00:26:50] And I don't think that I don't think that I don't think there is an organization that Jennifer Carnahan has ever gone to where it is improved because she was a part of it. And I don't think that her entrance into the Minnesota Senate will be productive to the relationships that need to happen. And so what I'm hearing from a lot of people, fair, unfair, right or wrong, is I think it's a Heinsman, Josh Gazelka type situation. I think Action for Liberty is going to dabble.

[00:27:18] But one that I think the one that I think a very uniting dynamic inside the Republican Party and obviously inside the Democratic Party is Jennifer Carnahan. I think she can be very polarizing. And I think if Republicans were thinking about this race where they'd like it to be, I think Republicans statewide would be would breathe a sigh of relief if Carrie Heinsman or Josh Gazelka came through the primary. And I think that there would be a bit of anxiety and a lot of jubilation of the DFL side if Carnahan came through.

[00:27:48] And I think if we're all being grownups and fair, I think that's the fairest analysis that we can offer. And again, I'm represented by multiple law firms and happy to can accept service at any one of their offices. But I'm very comfortable with what I just said. I will say this. I'm going to put on my Will Davis hat for a second. Okay. If I'm a Democrat. And I want and I'm looking for the best case scenario to win this seat.

[00:28:16] The reality is Jennifer Carnahan, to Michael's point, does have baggage. But I think the one thing here that we have is that we have a Republican who got booted from his house. He was forced to resign because he tried to have sex with a 17-year-old girl. I know that is still pending litigation and there is a court trial that needs to be done. But that is what he's accused of right now.

[00:28:40] And if Republicans, if she were to make it out of the primary, the story no longer becomes Republicans are going to take over this seat. If I'm sitting here with my Will Davis hat and I'm a Democrat, I'm forcing all of the attention back to the Anton Lazaro situation, which also had very negative child trafficking, sex trafficking connotations to it. It is not a mirror that Republicans want. It is not a public-facing persona that they want attached to them.

[00:29:10] And that would be the best case scenario for Democrats if they're looking. That's just the reality of it. I was also just going to point to some of the accolades that Heinsman and Gazelka do bring with them. Heinsman was a field staffer under Trump. She's been very active in the district. Obviously, her husband is well-known, so her name is also very well-known. Maybe has some dings like Will pointed out as well.

[00:29:37] But when it comes to Republican voters in the region, I do think that bodes very well for her. And then same with Josh Gazelka, right? That name is very well-known. While he might not have performed well statewide when he ran for governor, Paul Gazelka did have a lot of support from his district in his almost decade of service in the Minnesota Senate. Josh Gazelka was also recently endorsed by the MPPOA, which is a strong endorsement early on, especially for a younger candidate.

[00:30:04] So those two, I think, have a lot of perks, a lot of props, a lot of good that comes from them. And the ability to have both, I think, probably, again, far more conservative than I am, would represent the district and allow us, to your point, Preya, to turn to a well-respected Republican in the seat.

[00:30:26] And allow us to move, hopefully, beyond the tragic, horrific, gross situation we're currently dealing with our most recent senator in that seat. And I will say, obviously, I've been a little tongue-in-cheek here. I'm sorry, Becky. But I think we can all agree, DFL, GOP, anything that crawls out of a swamp up there will be a step up from the previous occupant of that seat. Just happy to be rid and be able to move on, for sure, is the right thing. It's a can't lose because no one's going to be worse than that guy.

[00:30:54] And the one thing I will say, just to maybe close out this subject, is the primary is on April 15th, tax day. And one of two things will be happening today. I will be wrapping myself in the American flag and embracing democracy. Or I will be reciting Ken Brockman's line, which is, I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work. And so one of those things I will be saying, and we'll see which one it is. All right. Moving on to some more fun open seats in Minnesota, the U.S. Senate seat.

[00:31:24] Again, Tina Flynn-Smith has decided she is not running again. So we have some announced candidates on both sides, expecting that there will be far more announced candidates on both sides to come. But I want to start with the Democrat side. This week, Attorney General Keith Ellison endorsed Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. This was not a shock that he endorsed her. It's really early. A lot of other potential candidates to get in the race. So I think it was, it's a strong statement.

[00:31:53] It is one showing he, whose name was still speculated by some, is potentially running for this seat. Obviously is not. In a statement shared by the Flanagan campaign, Ellison described her as a pragmatic progressive with a record of critical wins for families across Minnesota. I definitely think of the candidates in the race and the ones speculated. They definitely align more on the further progressive side of the spectrum that I think we will see.

[00:32:23] But let's, Michael, I'm going to start with you on this. I'm going to put you on the spot. What did you think about this, that being so early? And if we, all of the names that are in the race and speculated, not that big of a shock, but the early side. I was surprised. I was surprised. And I think, and I'm going to look to Will a little bit for his reaction because I think there is, and also a little bit to the other two, just because I think in the Republican primary or in the Republican process, there's a couple different lanes.

[00:32:51] I think the strongest lane inside the DFL is the progressive lane and someone who comes from that lane. And I think that Flanagan, I think occupies that progressive lane. And I think that Ellison endorsing her, so they, I think would both relatively come from the same lane. And so I think it's a very, first of all, getting endorsed by Keith Ellison on the DFL side is clearly a net positive. And I think it was a, it showed a, he's been discussed as a candidate.

[00:33:19] And so I don't see any downside in it. And I think it clearly cements her as the front runner. It's an early endorsement, but the fact that Ellison was willing to do it so early, I think goes to the strength of at least the Democrats perceive of Flanagan's candidacy. It's a, it makes perfect sense. It's a tad early, but I think it just cements that she is the front runner and what we should be, what I think I'm going to be looking for is some of the fundraising numbers.

[00:33:46] I'm going to be interested to see aside from what we've seen organizationally and this endorsement, which is significant. I'm going to be looking to see what the fundraising is and the numbers is, because I think the best way that Flanagan could show that she's ahead in this race, aside from organizationally with this endorsement is by crushing it with her first kind of fundraising numbers that come in. And if she's able to raise a bunch of change, that's going to be impressive.

[00:34:12] And that's going to be a further evidence that she's in the commanding league in this race. I hope that was down the middle analysis. That it was. Yes. But from my perspective, it's close with all three camps or at least the two and then the speculated one as well. We know Congresswoman Angie Craig is highly speculated to be in. I really do all three of them. I have not chosen a side. I think all of them would be very worthy. I think it's cool that there are three women in that race on our side.

[00:34:41] I think that kind of continues the tradition we have right now of our entire delegation as women. And I think all of them would do a great job. I don't have a sense. I think probably your speculation is right that Peggy will do very well with progressives, I would say, maybe in contrast to the other two. But it's really hard to say. I think there's so much to happen. Like you said, Becky, it's so early right now that so many things could happen, so many decisions to be made and minds to be changed.

[00:35:09] I will say this about Attorney General Keith Ellison. Anybody who knows him knows how much he loathed being in Washington, D.C. He was in the minority the whole time. And a lot of people were shocked to leave as a congressman to come back home and be an attorney general. But he loathed D.C. and I cannot hardly blame him. I've been out there a few times myself and I would have no interest in being out there. And so I respect a lot. And so it did not surprise me one bit to see him pass on that seat.

[00:35:36] But are you surprised it happened so early that he endorsed Lieutenant Governor Flanagan? No, I don't think so. I think those two are close. And I think one thing with endorsements and across the board, and all three of you know this, so much of what we do here is about actually relationships much more than who says what and who's what's like. This whole thing is done on relationships. And I think that right there is a good example of a strong relationship that I think will be carried forward.

[00:36:05] I want to ask you, Will, one more question on this before we move on to the Republican side. Just because we've seen over the last couple of months with Smith dropping out, her kind of saying, I'm not going to endorse. With Ken Martin moving on to the DNC and saying, I'm not going to endorse in the DFL chairs race. We've seen a lot of conversations about picking winners and losers and having a say in your predecessor. What's the opposite of predecessor? Your subsequent, your follower. You get it. Who follows you in a seat?

[00:36:35] Is that going to be a thing for Democrats, this cycle of having a little bit of animosity towards somebody who is picking a winner or loser or endorsing? It's something that we it's important in politics. We want to know who are our higher ups, who are our main folks of our parties choose and align themselves with. Right. I think it's an important thing. But I've just been just curious of your take because of so much of it being of a conversation recently.

[00:37:02] I do think it. I think it depends, but it depends on the folks who are running. And I think there's enough respect built up between Angie and Melissa Lopez Franzen and Peggy Flanagan that Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and Congressman Craig DeGiro. There you go. And former senator. Whatever. Yeah. Former senator. Yes, exactly right. And I think just like having the respect that they have amongst folks in the party. And I will also say this.

[00:37:29] You're not going to find too many people who were closer to Ken through his certainly last eight years. But he learned very well in 2016 when he quickly endorsed Hillary Clinton that it is better to let the people decide more than trying to jump in and put your finger on the scale right away. Because that was a rough period for him, I can tell you. And that was based on relationships also. That was not an anti-Bernie thing by any means. He was close with the Clinton campaign.

[00:37:56] But Ken knows all too well that doing this is a good way to get burned. And I think he's smart. And I will say this. He always ran the party that way, too. He always gave everybody their fair shake without putting his finger. I never saw him do it once. And I think it's a smart way to go for leadership. He's not Ryan Gosling, man. He's the chair of the DNC. It's not Ken. It's not Ken and Barbie. He's the chair of the DNC. Ken Martin. Yeah, no. No. All right. I want to keep us moving here. Name drop.

[00:38:24] On the Republican side, the news of the week is not necessarily tied to the 2026 U.S. Senate race, but more the 2024 Senate race, who just happens to have a candidate who ran in 24 against Klobuchar and is also running in 26 against Democrat. Open seat. We had a KSTP report this week that showed that Royce White, once again, there's some issues, concerns, speculation surrounding his campaign finance report. We dove into this quite a bit last cycle.

[00:38:53] But right now, this is showing his 2024 campaign finance report that he has filed. His campaign has filed shows that more than $1 million of donor money went to credit card fees. That's nearly 70 percent of his $1.43 million in operating expenses during the campaign against Klobuchar. White says nothing to see here. This is just how they operate. Blaming, win red, bundlers. And I want to say some of these numbers because it's just staggering.

[00:39:23] Some of the biggest credit card fees were paid mid-October right before. There was a charge of $123,000 to credit card fees on October 16th, $53,000 on October 17th, and $260,000, a quarter of a million dollars on one day for credit card fees on October 24th. I have worked on a number of campaigns. The last time I've worked in finance was in 2010 on the Emmer campaign.

[00:39:52] But in my experience, because I am a nerd and like to look at campaign finance reports, this is not how it works. It's just not how it works. Even when we look at WinRed's website, they say on their website they usually charge between 3 and 4 percent. They even state, quote, WinRed charges a very low 3.2 percent on high dollar gifts and 3.94 percent on other donations to cover the cost of credit card processing fees, interchange

[00:40:19] fees, as well as powerful features we offer, on and on. I am just a little boggled by this. Preya, what do you think is going on? Have you ever seen this much of a campaign, other than Matt Gaetz, who ran into similar issues? Have you seen anything like this before? A similar thing happened with like when Kim Klasik out of Maryland, she ran half of her

[00:40:46] donations ended up going to consulting fees or like fundraising fees, like digital fundraising fees, especially if it's a specific firm that charges high dollar amounts. There is a real possibility that folks can get taken advantage of. Do I think that's entirely the situation here? No. I've never seen anything this high before. The Kim Klasik example from WAPO was at like 50 percent.

[00:41:14] So even then, there's like a 20 percent like difference going on here of where the rest of that went. I don't think we'll ever really truly find out. There are some speculations that I have of what's going on. I won't like straight up say them here for various reasons, but I will just say that I do think at the end of the day, this is a little bit more shadier than folks would realize. Well, you've been in the game a decent amount.

[00:41:43] I'm sure in your time as research director have analyzed many campaign finance reports. What do you think? Like Priya said, I've never seen anything quite like this. Now, I will say WinRed, which is like the Republican alternative to ActBlue, is a much more griftier organization. They charge higher fees. WinRed obviously was known for folks would sign up and when they would make a donation, it would automatically check a box that made it a recurring donation. The folks didn't know it. Right.

[00:42:11] So there is a bit of a reputation there and their fees are much higher across the board for the candidates. But I will say nothing like this. And this does not account for that. Also, I have seen some candidates, your state auditor candidate last cycle, he was repaid. He did everything in off the books out of his own credit card and then he would pay himself back. So there was no accounting for what it was. So that was it. But it was no debt, no massive debt. So there are ways to get around. This is just everything all at once.

[00:42:40] I will also say we've seen a lot of campaigns. Usually the Republican that runs in CD5, that's a major grift campaign. You can just look at those those finance documents where they are raising a ton of money and they're spending all that money. And not a dime goes towards any sort of campaign. It's just a big sort of like grift campaign that's just going, yes, Lacey Johnson. We've seen it. We've seen a few of these. And but it seems like on his side, he was like raising a bunch of money and doing we don't even know what with it.

[00:43:10] I'm sure he was spending some on sort of digital fundraising, but it just vanished in midair. Yeah. And again, I won't speculate. I don't think Michael's attorneys cover us. But yeah, so it's who knows. But it is it's typical of Royce White. He says everybody does this, but he says that a lot about a lot of things, seemingly having no actual understanding how the cake is made. Who knows? Michael, I know. The strippers get paid. Say that again.

[00:43:40] Oh, I just said or how the strippers get paid. Wow. No. This was a fair mile. I know, Michael, you typically are not at a loss for words when it comes to some of the the inappropriate or questionable actions by this particular campaign. What do you think? So a couple of things. This is a time when I missed my late father, who was a forensic accountant. And and we would a lot of times my dad and I would go through FEC reports just like all

[00:44:08] kids growing up did with their parents sit down and look at FEC reports and campaign finance reports. I'd like to pivot back for a second. And again, guys, let's just let's embrace the First Amendment for a second. What do we think? And let's just live in the real world. I don't I can't come up with a scenario that's that makes sense to me from a credit card processing fee sampling or any type of scenario where this passes must are.

[00:44:35] Now, it doesn't mean anyone's breaking the law and I'm not accusing anyone of breaking the law, but something stinks here. And I don't and I'm and we're all smart to varying degrees. I consider myself the dumbest on the show right now. But to what degree can we not the three of us, the four of us in total, me looking at the three of you, we're struggling to come up with what we think is going on here. And we all have experience in this in other types of ways.

[00:45:00] I think that there is a pattern here with Royce White, which is that every one of his campaigns has been scrutinized in some way or some way for spending money in questionable manners, whether he's putting the wrong credit card down, whether he has the type where he's or he's spending money in places where he shouldn't be in terms of what's justifiable for a campaign finance matter. I'm not aware that he has faced.

[00:45:27] I'm not aware that he has faced any legal repercussions for his reporting. What I do know is that there is a lot of smoke and questions about his FEC reports. This is another example, though, in a long example of problems with Royce White's candidacy and how he chooses to operate and run his his campaign operations. And it is another concern that I have. I believe more than ever, particularly after last weekend, that Republicans in this state

[00:45:56] have a Royce White problem and they have to start taking stuff seriously because if Republicans in this state don't wake the they're going to have Royce White and Mike Lindell as the Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate in this state next election cycle and Republicans ain't going to win. If you have Royce White and Mike Lindell as the candidates, you're not going to win anything down ballot and they have to start waking up and start taking this seriously because this is a mess right now.

[00:46:26] And Royce White going to conventions and confronting members of Congress and then declaring war against them and then picking fights with Tom Hauser and bring in Professor Penn along for the ride. This stuff isn't going to work, folks, because and I said this on a previous episode, we can all disagree with the progressive nature and whether or not as Republicans, we think that Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and potentially Congresswoman Craig or former state's sentiment

[00:46:55] earlier, Melissa Lopez Franzen, whether they're whether we can rate them on their progressive scorecards. But the bottom line is those three women know how to run races and those three women know how to run campaigns. And those campaigns, if they're run statewide, they're going to have the smart type of staff that knows how to build a campaign or operation. And I guarantee you, when we look at Flanagan's and other people's FEC reports, we're not going to see these types of credit card charges.

[00:47:22] And so are we really going to sit back here and think that Royce White has figured out the secret sauce for how Republicans are going to win statewide? That's not the case. He is not a good candidate. He doesn't run good campaigns. He's a horrible messenger. He's going to cost Republicans opportunity. The nightmare scenario for Republicans is starting to play itself out. Royce White for Senate, Mike Lindell for governor. And you might as well shut the lights up because Republicans aren't going to win anything.

[00:47:49] In all fairness, Michael, he did have to bring Dr. Professor David Penn with them because he's on the FEC report as a security, a member of his security team. I'm just going to say to you, this whole thing, and look, people can call me out and say whether I'm a Republican or not, I don't care. I have consistently said I want to see Republicans to win in this state and there be a vibrant two-party system. You can go back and listen to the first days of this podcast episode. I've been consistent.

[00:48:19] My message has not changed. But I'm going to tell Republicans something. Royce White ain't a super genius. And he hasn't figured out the secret sauce for Republicans to win statewide, nor has his sidekick, Professor Penn. And sitting down and running a campaign and funding it this way is not the way to win. The best thing, the best thing that Republicans can do is start mirroring the operations of what Democrats do in this state. Not their message, not necessarily their voting style, but how they organize and they build

[00:48:48] campaigns and how they run their campaigns. I guarantee you when Lieutenant Governor Flanagan's FEC reports comes out, we're going to see a well-primed, well-built organization. And we're not going to see hundreds of thousands of dollars of credit card fees, spending that's just gone into the win and that there's nothing to show for it. And Royce White is exactly why Republicans can't have nice things in the state.

[00:49:13] And it's the people that enable him, sit with him and sit by and say, yeah, Tom Hauser's got an agenda. Oh, it's a fair questions on his report. He needs to be more transparent. And if Republicans don't wake up, it's going to be Royce White and Mike Lindell next year. It's going to be lights out. I disagree with you. I don't think the Minnesota Republicans' problem is a procedural one. And I frankly don't even think it's a Royce White himself problem. I think he's emblematic of what the problem is.

[00:49:42] I think there is a cultural rot amongst some of these Republicans who have come to prominence with Donald Trump and some of his folks and people that allow people like Royce White and all these other creeps to riot and Mike Lindell and people who would never have been given a time and a day, even when I started this work in 2016, would never have been given the time of day. But they have risen to prominence for a reason because the things they say are now have

[00:50:09] become culturally acceptable in many corners of the Internet and our fair state as well. And Royce White got a lot of votes. And I don't think that's going away. And I don't think that's a procedural problem. That is a problem within the party. Correct. At the end of the day, Wisconsin's a great example of what we needed to emulate. What ended up winning or doing better on Tuesday night were candidates that stuck to the message

[00:50:38] that everyone could agree on and candidates that didn't get into the fray, like Will said. To his point, he's absolutely right. There are a lot of people that would not have even risen up in 2020. People who would not have been acceptable. Royce White definitely would not have been an acceptable candidate in 2020. There's a lot of people that have risen up. And I'm saying this as a Republican. And we need to figure it out fast. Or to Michael's point, this state is lost to us.

[00:51:05] Where every other state is falling into Republican hands, we will remain the blue bastion of the Midwest. Just a couple of final thoughts here. Obviously, Tom Hauser is a great reporter. He does a lot of investigative work. I've worked with him over the years. If this was something that was common across Senate campaigns or congressional campaigns in Minnesota or across the country, that would be included. I think a big issue here is not only is this sketchy until we see invoices or receipts or

[00:51:35] facts backing this up, but it's obviously, I think, all comes down to how Royce White conducts himself as well, correct? If he truly thought that this was legitimate, there is a way to have that conversation and say, this is one of the issues that I have with fundraising. I don't think that this is fair. I wish there was another way. I'm going to continue to push forward. There is a way to stand behind your truth and do so in a way that, like you said, Michael, alluding

[00:52:01] to a conversation or argument, whatever you want to call it, where Royce White confronted Tom Emmer at a CD6 convention this last weekend. There's been, he confronted a couple of the state representatives. He's gotten in their face. He is bragging about it on his social media. It's just, again, not becoming of what we are looking for from our political leaders. There's more questions in this about rental cars and obviously the spending that Preya mentioned previously at strip clubs with a wrong card.

[00:52:30] It just goes on and on. We need to move on from him. We need to have somebody else more legitimate who can stand behind the messaging. And my last thought that I just want to throw out there is the CEO of WinRed is a Minnesota native. It is Ryan Lick, who has been long involved in Republican politics. I worked with him back in the day. He was a part of the college Republicans. I have used WinRed for a number of candidates that I've worked with, and I find them reputable. They seem to be legit.

[00:52:59] We'll find out if that's the case. I think Michael summed up a lot of our thoughts on the situation when we look at the Republican side of the U.S. Senate race right now. I think we're all hopeful that there are some more well-spoken legitimate messengers. Of the Republican principles and standards. But Preya, what do you think? Any final thoughts on any of this race-white issue or the race in general? I think if we want a serious shot of competing, we just need to do better.

[00:53:28] That's just that we have to do better. Yeah, I think what I said earlier about just it's a broader issue within the Republican Party, and I think deplatforming some of these grifters probably wouldn't hurt either. Michael, want to close us out on the lovely topic of U.S. Senate? I think I said a lot, and I'm going to have to call my mom and warn her about what I said on the podcast, so I should probably just shut up when I'm ahead. All right.

[00:53:54] We got into a lot more to come, and we'll be trying to cover this race as we go. Thank you guys so much for joining us, and we'll talk with you soon. Thank you. Thank you. We just finished interviewing Will Davis and Preya Santamar. They, by the way, just an absolutely fantastic episode, and really one of my favorite, and I know I say that every time, and it's repetitive, but boy, boy, they made some fantastic points along with your analysis.

[00:54:25] I think that I'd be curious about what are the continual analysis with the sconson and the tea leaves, I think is going to be interesting to discuss. We touched on Senate District 6, and I think the kind of the closing meat of the episode was about the Senate race, and in particular, it shifted to looking with some analysis and awe as to what the Democrats are accomplishing right now and where the Republicans are sitting at right now. Your take. Yeah.

[00:54:51] I think this all kind of stems around just, I think our conversation around the Wisconsin election really sums up a lot of what's going on right now, that Democrats are in a good spot and Republicans are struggling to catch our footing, but anything can happen, and there's a lot of time left. And before those midterm elections, I think that we will see a lot of change in national policy affecting our everyday lives. I am cautiously optimistic.

[00:55:17] Again, I say that as somebody who is not necessarily the biggest Trump supporter, but have some confidence in some of the policy and efforts that we are seeing coming out of the White House and Washington right now, I think that when we look towards the 2026 election, midterms are going to be really tough for Republicans. And in particular, there's a lot going on here in Minnesota with the governor's race and U.S. Senate.

[00:55:42] I think that we will start to see some more solid, legitimate Republican candidates announcing and coming out and having, especially post-session, I think we'll start to see that. And bringing back some good Republican conversations and messaging to the environment we're currently sitting in. So I am really looking forward to that because right now I feel like we got a lot of yahoos out there leading the charge with messaging.

[00:56:11] And so I'm excited to have some of our really smart, well-educated, well-intentioned, solid Republican candidates announce they're running for some of these statewide offices, get into the race and really elevate the conversation. I don't want to be too much of an alarmist, but I have seen this play out before. And I have seen election cycles happen where don't worry, someone's going to get in, someone get in. The election is next November.

[00:56:37] And every day that someone's not in the race, not having these discussions, not raising the money, not doing stuff. I have said before, I'll repeat again, I haven't met Adam Swarzy, but I think to go back to my point that I said a couple episodes ago is let's look at the, let's look at the candidates on the democratic side. The two that are in right now, the potential of a third being Congresswoman Angie Craig and understand that right now it's Rice White versus Adam Swarzy.

[00:57:02] And I think the best way that Republicans can show that Rice White is outside of the mainstream is to have other good candidates like Adam Swarzy involved in some debate and isolating Rice White a little bit more because it concerns me immensely for Republicans to win. And then Mike Lindell coming in the race, Mike Lindell has an impressive fundraising list and he can raise small dollar money.

[00:57:28] And there is his interest level in potentially seeing this race is why there needs to be some changes for Republicans looking at the race. Again, if we're talking about Wisconsin being, uh, can we read the tea leaves? I will continue to be one of my measuring sticks to see how Republicans are feeling in this state. It's the quality of candidates that have announced that they're running, not candidates that are, that, that have, that are tiptoeing around the race, but candidates who have announced and have filed to run.

[00:57:57] When I start to see more candidates of the kind of that kind of quality that we need to see, then I'm going to start feeling better about where the party's going. But I'm not seeing that right now. Fair point. Time will tell and we'll be here to analyze. Yes. And I didn't mean to talk over you. I just want to say one thing in closing. You are pregnant and I am so impressed. And I, again, we've joked about this off air and to steal from Jim Gaffigan, the contribution

[00:58:27] that men make to pregnancy is pretty limited. And so I just want to tell you how impressed I am that you're able to come on. You're doing a, you're doing a few weeks and you're still doing a podcast and making time during the day. And your analysis and your, and what you just did in this episode is would be remarkable, independent of whether you were as pregnant as you were. And I just want to say how much I appreciate your time willing to come on, give some of your energy and your family's energy to still do this podcast.

[00:58:57] It is greatly appreciated. And you were doing a great job. Well, I appreciate that. We've got a couple weeks to go and a little guy's cooking and going to be potentially a very big boy here. I'm rather uncomfortable, but baby's healthy. I'm healthy. And to reiterate from a few episodes ago, I am not a single mom. My husband and I just celebrated our three year anniversary and are excited to jointly welcome this baby boy at the end of the month.

[00:59:23] But hey, I think this podcast is also some good practice to stretch my brain power a little bit because I do feel sometimes that pregnancy brain slipping in and feel like I am just, there's nothing going on up there but marble. It's some good practice, but thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for all you're doing. And I want to thank all of our listeners for joining us for another episode of The Breakdown with Broadcombecki. Before you go, show some love for your favorite podcast by leaving us a review across Apple platforms or across any platform that you listen.

[00:59:50] You can also follow us on our website and across all social media platforms at BBBreakpod. The Breakdown with Broadcombecki will return soon. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a great day. Bye.