Good morning! Corn dog and Pronto Pup season officially begins this week.

Republican governor candidate Lisa Demuth got a massive infusion of campaign cash through Minnesota’s public subsidy program. The state campaign finance board issued the post-primary payments on Friday. Demuth is the first candidate to get more than $1 million; she got $1,293,703 from the program that’s funded through income tax checkoffs and an appropriation from the general fund. She got $608,000 more than she would have if DFL nominee Amy Klobuchar had not opted out of the program, which requires candidates to agree to spending limits and other conditions.  Klobuchar has raised substantially more for her campaign than Demuth, which is one reason why she didn’t want to abide by the spending limits. (Had Klobuchar taken it, she would have been capped at $4.9 million; she has raised more than $9 million for her campaign through mid-July.) But the public infusion for Demuth will help her close that gap without having to raise that money in increments of up to $4,000 per donor. As of Friday, Demuth had not asked to be released from the spending limit, which is an option if at least one other person running for the same office isn’t abiding and the candidate seeking release meets other criteria.

Of note: DFL state auditor candidate Zack Filipovich didn’t get any public subsidy money despite seeking it. He ran into a filing glitch and missed a deadline for supplying the campaign board with key information. He asked for a board waiver but that wasn’t granted. It will cost his campaign about $100,000, but it also means that his fall rival, the GOP’s Scott Jensen, got an additional $70,000 by scooping up the entirety of the general account payment. Attorney General Keith Ellison is his party’s only statewide candidate to receive a public subsidy: He got $294,603. His Republican opponent, Ron Schutz, didn’t seek the subsidy.

 

Overall, Republicans got far more of the record, nearly $5.3 million pot. Their candidates will receive $3,039,290 to the $2,238,856 for DFLers. Looking back to the 2010 cycle, that’s the largest party gap on record. Republicans took in more than Democrats only one other time. The difference this year is that three statewide DFL candidates didn’t qualify or otherwise opted out of the program. DFL legislative candidates got a larger share of the pie than GOP hopefuls for the Legislature, in part because there was more money in a party checkoff account. No third party candidates qualified for public subsidy money.

Today is the deadline for Mike Lindell to decide whether to pony up for a hand recount. He said last week he would pay for one. The estimated cost is $825,000, which he would have to put up in advance or through a surety bond. There is a law that allows a candidate to recover those costs if the recount results in a significant deviation from previous numbers. Lindell could also seek a partial recount of up to three precincts before deciding whether to broaden the scope.  Lindell lost to Lisa Demuth in the GOP governor’s primary by about 45,000 votes.

Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court petition filed by Mike Lindell running mate Phillip Parrish is getting ample pushback from Minnesota election officials. A brief filed last week by the Attorney General’s Office calls Parrish’s attempt to upend the election results “procedurally flawed and substantively meritless.” Parrish suggested irregularities based on an Anoka County commissioner’s remarks about voting technology. The state filing said the modems that Parrish highlights have been used since 2005 and are expressly permitted by law. “Despite having concerns about such machines a year ago and knowing that such machines would be used in the election, Parrish did not challenge their usage before the election,” the state lawyer, Allen Cook Barr, writes. The brief calls for dismissal of the case “due to myriad procedural defects and also on the merits.”

The state compensation council has determined that the head of the newly formed Office of Inspector General will get a salary just shy of $200,000 per year. The new office is tasked with oversight of state agencies and due to launch next year. The compensation council has set the yet-chosen leader's salary at $198,214. The legislative panel that will recommend finalists for the office director role meets for the first time on Wednesday . The panel is made up of eight lawmakers, split evenly between the chambers and the parties. It will require a majority vote of five members to advance any finalists to the governor for selection. Confirmation of the governor’s pick would require three-fifths support of the state Senate.

Anyone whose Capitol commute was affected by the John Ireland Bridge replacement should take solace that the project is winding down. The old bridge connecting the Cathedral Hill neighborhood with the Capitol complex was torn down before last year’s marathon. It was built in 1967. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has a goal of getting the new one open before this year’s marathon on Oct. 4. State transportation officials say the new four-lane bridge will have better safety features, bike lanes and pedestrian pathways.