Good morning. The WNBA-best Minnesota Lynx close out their regular season tonight, maybe without their star rookie Olivia Miles. Here’s hoping she’s back in form for the playoffs!

Money is flooding into Minnesota races. We now have a clearer picture of the millions being spent on top Minnesota statewide and legislative campaigns , with the release of the first batch of campaign finance reports since mid-summer. In the governor’s race, the biggest outside spending group is Restore Sanity, a GOP group that sprang up early this year to support Republican Lisa Demuth’s candidacy. It’s already spent $7 million and has the same amount ready to deploy. Two $5 million bursts from a single donor came in within a month. On the DFL side, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota spent $1.3 million in digital ads critical of Demuth that appeared on online and streaming service platforms. But Demuth has far less cash to spend than her Democratic opponent, Amy Klobuchar, who has raised more than $13 million this year and had $3.5 million on hand as of Sept. 15. Demuth raised about $2.6 million, including $1.3 million from a public campaign subsidy, and had $618,000 available to spend. 

Expectations of a high-spending, hotly contested attorney general’s race are coming to bear. The reports made public yesterday show that both candidates are sitting on big stockpiles. Attorney General Keith Ellison trails Republican challenger Ron Schutz in cash on hand: $1 million for Schutz compared to $635,000 for the incumbent. But some of that has to do with Schutz loaning his campaign $450,000 on the day before the reports were due. Ellison took in more overall with the help of a nearly $295,000 public subsidy payment. Outside groups are pounding the race on both ends. More than $5.1 million was spent as of mid-September, with more than half of that to scuff up Ellison. Schutz got backing from conservative groups trying to give the party the first Republican attorney general in Minnesota since the early 1970s. Ellison had labor unions and the Alliance for a Better Minnesota either working in his favor or against Schutz. 

Former state Sen. Justin Eichorn was sentenced to 16 months in prison on federal charges in a child sex solicitation sting. As Matt Sepic reports , prosecutors sought a five-year prison term, but on Wednesday a judge imposed a sentence in line with Eichorn's plea agreement, in which he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of attempted possession of child pornography. Police arrested the Grand Rapids Republican last year when he drove to Bloomington to meet someone he believed to be a teenage girl. When Eichorn asked for a nude photo, an undercover officer texted back, “I can assure you I am 17. If you aren’t interested…bye.” When he’s released from prison, Eichorn is subject to five years of supervised release. During that time, he’s prohibited from contact with anyone under 18 except for his own four children and his niece and nephew.  Judge Eric Tostrud called Eichorn’s actions “egregious” and “not the product of a single split second decision.” Eichorn apologized in a statement made in court. “I was selfishly thinking of my own desires and ignoring the harm that I could have done,” he said, adding, “Abhorrent sinful behavior is what brought me here today.” 

St. Paul’s mayor is the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the St. Paul police chief. The civil case filed yesterday is the latest development in a rocky few months for first-year Mayor Kaohly Her , who was investigated for inappropriate comments and actions toward city employees. A two-page summary of the independent investigation that said Her had engaged in inappropriate behavior with city employees but that investigators were not able to substantiate sexual harassment allegations. Police Chief Axel Henry says this falsely minimized and disputed conduct that Henry reported and others witnessed. His lawsuit lays out more incidents of Her allegedly making sexually suggestive remarks and touching the chief in an uncomfortable way. Her’s spokesperson referred to the investigative summary and said “the mayor will continue to lead St. Paul and follow the recommendations of the report.” 

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michele Tafoya has made opposing transgender athletes in women’s sports a central theme of her campaign. As Walker Orenstein reports in the Minnesota Star Tribune , the former NFL broadcaster has elevated her advocacy for banning trans participation in female sports much more than other Minnesota Republicans in the past, something Tafoya championed long before she became a candidate. “I support girls and women in sports,” Tafoya told the Star Tribune. “I support them having their own sports.” Flanagan’s campaign criticized Tafoya for prioritizing the issue at a time when consumer costs and concerns over war are front of mind for many voters. 

Finally, as the daylight gets shorter people might start to notice the Capitol is shining brighter. New lighting posts have gone in all around the seat of government to make the white marble building gleam even more. The clusters of posts went in over the summer with an intended purpose of upgrading the exterior lighting with LED, which officials say is more energy efficient and cost effective to maintain. The installation was among the items in a Capitol Preservation Commission report last year