Good morning!  Summer’s fast fade will fade faster now that we’re into September.

There are now nine weeks until votes are counted in the November election. Absentee and early voting starts in 17 days. Television ads are running full steam. Debates will soon follow. It’s go time for the campaigns. Once early voting starts, the chute begins to narrow. Base turnout will be important — motivation might be more consequential this year than persuasion because the relative pool of undecideds is likely small. Polling has been limited and its value is in doubt after some big misses in recent years. Candidates are shaking hands and posing for selfies at their State Fair booths. But are they making headway? As in, are they meeting and hearing from people who weren’t already in their camps? Would they tell us if they weren’t? The goal for some campaigns is to get email addresses or phone numbers for get-out-the-vote pushes or to fill volunteer shifts later in the campaign. Conversations with voters at the fair suggest the choir is sung to. People toting around hand-held fans or tote bags with candidate names or slogans know they’re walking advertisements and seem just fine with it. 

The beauty of the fair is that it’s open to contenders and longshots alike. Republican candidate booths are set up right next to the Libertarian Party’s stand and just down the way is one for a suburban congressional candidate. The messages that span the ideological spectrum are there if you want. Brian spoke yesterday with Doug Chapin, a congressional candidate challenging high-ranking Republican Rep. Tom Emmer in a district that’s a big stretch for Democrats. Chapin, whose background is in election policy, is unfazed by all the factors that suggest he won’t win and instead is concentrating on a few that give him a sliver of a chance. The 6th Congressional District is growing fast, with added population pushing out from the Twin Cities into rural areas. The GOP president is unpopular. People might be seeking a check in power and Emmer is a prominent face of a Congress reluctant to cross the president. “I think in many ways Tom Emmer is the perfect symptom of what's wrong with Congress,” Chapin said. He said he’s in it for the long haul. “The plan is absolutely to win this year. But I have told people to win or lose, I'm running again in ‘28, ideally for reelection. This district is changing; it should be a Democratic district, and we're going to do what it takes to make that happen.” The invitation for Emmer to come on our air remains open.

The statewide race without a statewide candidate gets a nudge today. Groups promoting passage of a school funding constitutional amendment are holding an event to outline their plan for winning voter approval. The amendment seeks to draw more money from a dedicated school aid account that is seeing robust investment returns. The plan would stream more dollars to classrooms without relying on property tax bumps to do it. The most serious opponent of the ballot measure? Ambivalence. If people skip over the question, that ballot goes into the "no" column. It takes a majority of voters in the election to vote "yes" to gain passage. As part of the campaign, the coalition supporting the measure has set up a calculator that lets people see how their area school district would fare if the money had been authorized earlier. Future payments will depend on how the investment fund performs.

Tariffs are among the cost-of-living issues that will be part of Democratic campaign messaging from now until November. President Donald Trump’s levies against U.S. trading partners, most acutely against Minnesota’s northern neighbor Canada, are creating economic uncertainty and, in some cases, cost spikes. Torey Van Oot from Axios looks at how tariffs have hit home . She says it nets out to $2,000 per household since January 2025. That’s not to say it’s coming straight out of peoples’ pockets because some manufacturers are eating costs or masking them. The DFL Party hopes to make Republican candidates up and down the ballot own the Trump tariffs, either because they haven’t fought them in Washington or spoken up against them enough in Minnesota. It fits neatly into the affordability narrative that is a central election theme. 

Minnesota and Wisconsin leaders found themselves on common ground to break ground on a rebuilt bridge to connect their states. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, along with U.S. senators from both states, met in Duluth yesterday for the symbolic construction start of a huge new bridge connecting the Twin Ports. The $2 billion project is a long time coming. It will replace what’s now the Blatnik Bridge, which was built in the early 1960s and carries more than 30,000 vehicles a day between Duluth and Superior, high over the headwaters of Lake Superior. But the bridge is nearing the end of its functional life. A federal infrastructure bill passed five years ago is covering $1 billion of the bridge's cost. Minnesota and Wisconsin are splitting the rest. Sen. Tina Smith said a five-year construction will test patience of motorists. "I'm grateful to everybody in this region who's going to put up with the disruption while this project gets built. It's going to be a pain, but it's going to be worth it." Sen. Amy Klobuchar called it an essential project. “We all know what happens when we don't take care of bridges. Everyone in Minnesota remembers where they were the day the 35W bridge collapsed. So this is important for safety, but it's also important for transportation,” she said. Demolition of the old bridge is slated to begin in March. The new bridge is expected to open by October 2031. 

Former Minnesota DFL State Party chair Ken Martin, more than a year into leading the Democratic National Committee, is trying to replicate his success here on a much-bigger and much-less-forgiving stage. As the Star Tribune’s Briana Bierschbach and Sydney Kashiwagi reported, his tenure at the DNC has been marked by fundraising questions, public infighting and reports of internal dysfunction that have fueled pointed criticism of Martin and doubts about his leadership, including on Capitol Hill. The midterms are the first major test of whether he can use the same playbook that made Minnesota Democrats unbeatable. “We are working quickly to both break the bad practices and rebuild in a way that helps us win in a way that’s durable,” Martin said.

As part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, the administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and Syria, saying the countries are now safe for immigrants to return to. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the administration. Now the small central Minnesota community of Long Prairie is feeling the effects, with about 80 Haitians recently laid off from their jobs at the local meat packing plant, American Foods Group, after having their work visas taken away. About 300 Haitian immigrants are in hiding after changes to their immigration status. Mathew Holding Eagle III visited Long Prairie to see how immigrants in town are trying to navigate the political climate.