Lisa Demuth defends $2.8M in outside PAC funding in governor's race, denies coordination
The November election is just over eight weeks away and one of the marquee races in Minnesota is the race for governor.
Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth now faces DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the November election.
Klobuchar is way ahead in fundraising with $3.44 million cash on hand to Demuth's $544,000, but Demuth has closed some of the gap with the help of outside money. Records show an outside PAC called Restore Sanity has given $2.8 million from at least 26 separate donations to Demuth's campaign, most of it going to advertising.
The Restore Sanity PAC is funded by Wisconsin billionaire Richard Uihlein, a top donor to President Trump.
In contrast, Klobuchar's campaign has received $5,000 of outside money from two Minnesota PACs.
"There can not be any type of coordination between an outside group and the candidate, so there is no coordination whatsoever," Demuth said.
WCCO reached out to Richard Uihlein and has not heard back.
Demuth's number one issue is the $9 billion fraud scandal that forced Gov. Tim Walz to not run for a third term. Despite the fact that Klobuchar has been at work in the U.S. Senate for 20 years, Demuth says she should be held accountable for the fraud crisis.
Demuth has been running ads focusing on a million-dollar funding proposal that Klobuchar supported that was stripped out of a funding bill. The money was never allocated and no one in the organization has been implicated in wrongdoing.
"Absolutely, Sen. Klobuchar should have been held accountable," Demuth said.
"I don't think it matters if you are closer," Demuth said when asked if she was closer to the fraud than Klobuchar as House speaker and a state representative.
While Republicans focus on fraud, the Democrats focus on President Trump. Klobuchar has blasted Demuth for supporting Mr. Trump's policies, that includes the Iran War that's led to higher gas prices.
Demuth has struggled when asked what policies of the Trump administration she disagrees with.
"The areas that I see differently from President Trump is bringing in foreign beef; the Canadian tariffs are damaging. The difference I haven't seen is Amy Klobuchar taking any different position than Tim," she said.
Demuth has denied criticism that she blocked any votes in an automatic weapons ban in the aftermath of the Annunciation mass shooting. She has also weighed in on the Boundary Waters issue, saying she will allow a ban on mining that Walz put into place to expire.
Limited polling shows Demuth is trailing Klobuchar, but she has been there before; a pre-primary poll had her in second place and she ended up winning the primary by double digits.
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