Good morning. Hold onto your hats today, it’s going to be a gusty one — and warm, too! So says our chief meteorologist.

The parents of a girl killed in a school shooting and who would have turned 12 on Election Day are calling out Republican nominee Lisa Demuth for the way gun bills were handled in the aftermath. Harper Moyski’s parents, Jackie Flavin and Mike Moyski, endorsed Democratic nominee Amy Klobuchar while issuing a sharp rebuke of Demuth , the Minnesota House speaker. They accused Demuth of lying to them about getting at least a floor vote on gun restrictions following a shooting that left their daughter and another child dead and injured many more people in August 2025. The gun bills stalled in committee and several procedural votes to advance them also failed in the tied House. Flavin said Demuth “lied to us in our living room” and she called the lawmakers account of the conversations inaccurate. Demuth has said she didn’t promise an up-or-down floor vote and has taken credit for blocking gun legislation during her campaign for the GOP nod. Her campaign called the shooting a “horrendous tragedy” and said Demuth has supported other steps to reduce school-based violence, including more security and added mental health treatment. The issue has also made its way into a new TV ad from Klobuchar and the DFL Party featuring Harper’s parents. Her birthday falls on Nov. 3.

The Minnesota Capitol will be a far different place in 2027. A new governor and substantial turnover in the Legislature assure plenty of fresh faces. But will one party gain full control or are we headed for a period of split government? Both scenarios are plausible as the 201 races play out. Few of those seats are truly competitive, and both parties are on offense in some districts and clearly on defense in others. The House was tied for the past two years and the Senate has a one-seat DFL edge. On “Politics Friday,” four caucus leaders lay out their predictions, messages and expectations of how it will affect the 2027 legislative agenda. The election outcome will dictate the issues that lawmakers will discuss next year and how much of the next governor’s vision comes to pass. Tune in at noon.

Federal election monitors are being sent to Hennepin and Ramsey counties, similar to the primary. So far, state officials say they’re ready to monitor the monitors. In the primary, there were about 40 sites where Department of Justice monitors were stationed outside. They must keep a distance from voters, by law. It’s part of a national deployment of the observers by the DOJ. NPR reports that counties in Colorado, Florida, Texas and Washington have also received notifications from the federal government. DOJ says it rejects the notion that the monitors are there to interfere or intimidate. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said he doesn’t anticipate disruptions but is making plans nonetheless. "We were there to watch them everywhere they were watching, just to make sure that everyone was following the law," he said, reflecting on the primary.

In preparation for that, advocates have been holding training for ‘election defense.’ Jon Collins reports that several groups organized to observe immigration agents during the ICE operations in Minnesota last winter, have shifted to doing training on elections. The groups are concerned that federal officials could interfere with people’s voting rights. Among the things the group is focused on are voting early, driving neighbors to the polls, identifying misinformation and Constitutional language. The training sessions have been going on for months and will continue until the election, one of the organizers told MPR. Secretary of State Simon said the state has strong election laws in place. “I'm confident not only that we have really good and precise laws in place, but that our partners at local units of government will enforce those laws,” Simon said.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar will move out of her Washington, D.C., home that federal agents searched last week, noting that attention brought on by the raid has made her feel unsafe there. Federal authorities are investigating potential fraud in her family's immigration paperwork and have issued grand jury subpoenas to some of her relatives, a person briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press. Omar, who was born in Somalia and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, told MS NOW in her first interview since the search that she is “confident in the fact that I didn’t do anything wrong.” Some of her political rivals also have focused on the unproven allegation that’s followed Omar throughout her political career — that she married her brother as part of a scheme for him to gain permanent residency status in the U.S. As the Star Tribune reported , she called the accusation “insane.”

The lone Senate Democrat in western Minnesota is contending with a barrage of outside attention and spending as he seeks a new term. As Harshawn Ratanpal reported , Sen. Rob Kupec of Moorhead describes himself as “one of those unicorn Democrats that's running in a district that Trump won.” He’s being challenged by Republican Austin Peterson from Hawley, a real estate developer and school board member hoping to energize rural voters in the Red River Valley while courting enough voters in the blue city of Moorhead. In campaign finance reports filed late last month, outside groups supporting Peterson outspent Kupec’s by a ratio of nearly 10 to one. The vast majority of that money is being spent on negative ads attacking Kupec, which have reached more than a million views on YouTube in the past two months. New reports due out next week will show whether a race that has already topped $1 million will get far beyond that. Odds favor that it will.

Minnesota’s state Capitol complex will undergo another security audit, this time focused on video surveillance capabilities. A solicitation posted by the state’s Department of Public Safety seeks a vendor to examine hardware and software for “operational effectiveness, cybersecurity, resiliency, scalability and lifecycle sustainability.” The 33-building complex that contains the Capitol, Judicial Building and several other agency offices and headquarters has approximately 1,100 cameras. That has expanded over the years as new threats have arisen. State officials say some of the legacy systems likely need replacement and more safeguards need to be built in. The goal is for the chosen vendor to deliver an assessment by Jan. 1. The evaluator “will not be eligible for any future implementation of this assessment,” according to state documents.

Want to hash out the state of our politics over a cold one? Next week, our colleague Clay Masters is hosting a politics happy hour at Arbeiter Brewing. Members of our MPR News politics team will be there to chat with Clay about what they’re up to in these closing days and what they’re hearing from Minnesotans as Election Day draws nearer.  Then, we’ll open the floor to take your questions and mingle about. Join us from 6-8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 3038 Minnehaha Ave in Minneapolis. The event is free, but registration is encouraged.