Good morning! Rain is likely today, but Sven promises a “stunning” weekend ahead.

Mike Lindell is fighting his Republican primary defeat in a couple of venues. Lindell said yesterday he’d pay for a hand recount of ballots in last week’s GOP primary, although he could be too late for that. His running mate Phillip Parrish has also asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to step in. Their GOP ticket came up well short of a win in the governor’s race party primary to Lisa Demuth and Ryan Wilson (179,683 votes to 134,282, according to the certified tally). Here’s the thing: You can’t just parcel out one party’s ballot because there’s not a single party ballot in Minnesota’s open primary. A voter decides which column to vote in so it’s not just a matter of reviewing the ones that contained GOP votes. A recount of all of the 1.1 million ballots would cost Lindell $825,000, which he’d have to pay for or issue a surety bond in advance. He has until Monday to do that.

Meanwhile, the Phillip Parrish petition alleges that some counties used voting systems that weren’t properly certified and that paper ballots should have been counted instead of the electronically tabulated figures. Parrish filed the petition on Monday. The canvassing board met as scheduled on Tuesday and certified the results. The high court’s case schedule allows for briefs and other materials in the case to be filed through today. Chief Justice Natalie Hudson’s order says that Parrish did “not include any affidavits or supporting documentation” for the claims of errors. Former Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz was appointed an acting justice to hear the case; two justices who sit on the canvassing board this election cycle have been recused along with a third justice for unknown reasons. 

The final canvass of the primary election was completed despite the late Lindell challenge. The action officially sets the November ballot. The report from the five-member canvassing board is chock full of numbers we’ll go back to when reporting on future primaries. One is the number of absentee and mail ballots cast. The final tally was a midterm primary election record of 255,211. That comes out to nearly 23 percent of the 1,125,730 total votes in the Aug. 11 primary. More than one in four primary voters live in Hennepin County (a tad higher than the percentage of people in Minnesota who live there overall). For the record, this year’s canvassing board is made up of: Secretary of State Steve Simon, Supreme Court justices Karl Procaccini and Theodora K. Gaïtas and district court Judges Mark J. Herzing and Andrea Lieser.

That old saying about polls being a snapshot in time is always important to heed, but the first post-primary snapshots are in. KSTP-TV is out with its first general election polls that are already raising hackles of those who question the value or trustworthiness of polls. Those arguments are as old as time. But here are the topline figures: Amy Klobuchar is up on Lisa Demuth in the governor’s race, with 51 percent backing the DFLer and 36 percent for the GOP nominee with the rest up for grabs or opting for someone else. The Senate race is tighter, with DFLer Peggy Flanagan’s edge over Republican Michele Tafoya barely outside the survey’s “confidence interval.” Expect that race to remain close. And the attorney general’s race is shaping up as another barnburner, with DFL incumbent Keith Ellison and Republican challenger Ron Schutz knotted up. Check out all the results here. 

Attorneys for Elon Musk's company X-AI asked a federal judge yesterday to stop a statewide ban on nudification technology. Minnesota’s new law bans AI platforms that let users depict people naked. Attorneys for X-AI say the company is also concerned about cases of AI generated nude photos, but the law is too broad and violates users' freedom of speech. State Sen. Erin Maye Quade, one of the law's sponsors, said the platforms aren't sufficiently regulating that content themselves. Judge Donovan Frank hasn't issued a ruling on whether the law will be allowed to stand. Attorney General Keith Ellison's office filed a motion on Wednesday to have the case dismissed. It will be heard in November before the judge who presided over the injunction arguments.

Tim Walz taking on northern Minnesota mining projects this week is just the latest example of how the governor has become increasingly comfortable flexing his executive authority. Walz used to argue Minnesota’s environmental fights should be settled by legislation and regulation, not a governor’s decree. He said if he governed that way, it would invite a future governor to do the same and perhaps undo all of his decisions. But as Briana Bierschbach at the Star Tribune explains , the Walz who blocked copper-nickel mining in the Boundary Waters through an executive order Tuesday is not the Walz who first took office. First during the pandemic and then again as President Donald Trump has focused his attention on Minnesota, Walz has turned more to his executive authority. Briana walks us through what this shift in approach means for northern Minnesota mining and what it could mean for whomever succeeds Walz in January.

Hyperscale data centers or motivating Minnesotans to run for local office. As Brian Arola at MinnPost reports, six cities linked to big data center developments in the last few years saw an uptick in candidate filings this year compared to 2024. Brian looked at Faribault, Farmington, Hermantown, Monticello, North Mankato and Pine Island. Faribault and North Mankato had the biggest increases, each had four more candidates file this year. Arola looks into those races and chats with some of the candidates. Data centers aren’t the only reason people are running for office this year, but they are turning out to be a big election issue. MPR News has been closely following data center developments and the growing controversy surrounding them, find our coverage here.