Good morning. Today is a campaign finance deadline for statewide candidates, parties and political groups, which means tomorrow we’ll see the batch of reports. Legislative candidates have another month to get their next reports in.

Negotiations over debates in the Minnesota governor’s race are going public and the final list of actual policy showdowns could be short. Yesterday, the two candidates for governor, Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth, shared lists of the debates and candidate forums in which they’d agreed to participate. There was just one both said they’d attend. That’s a candidate forum hosted by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce next month. Klobuchar said she’d agreed to that one, as well as a debate hosted by MPR News. Demuth hasn’t yet said whether she’d participate in that. Demuth, meanwhile, listed five she would participate in — three hosted exclusively by news outlets and two in conjunction with business organizations. Also of note: Demuth wants the Green Party’s Steven Young included in the debates. Young is the only third-party candidate listed by name on November’s governor ballots. Demuth’s list contains debates hosted by FOX9/Gray Media, KSTP-TV, Minnesota PBS and the Duluth News Tribune/Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, in addition to the Minnesota Chamber event. Klobuchar said the campaigns were still working to firm up details of potential debates. “We are continuing to work on this, so we make sure that we clearly have debates,” she said.

Amy Klobuchar rolled out her proposal that she says would bring down the cost of prescription drugs and renew tax credits for health insurance premiums. Yesterday at a Maple Grove oncology clinic, the DFLer running for governor said the state would launch its own tax credits to help offset the cost of health insurance premiums if Congress refuses to extend the credits previously in place as part of the Affordable Care Act. Congress allowed the enhanced premium tax credits to expire last year. As a result, people are facing hikes in the cost of their insurance coverage, or going without if they’re unable to afford it, Klobuchar said. “If they don't act, I will act and I will put it in place as governor. In addition to that, I will make sure that small businesses get more help in being able to provide health insurance, which has been a major problem,” Klobuchar said. She said 10 other states had put in place similar programs and could serve as a model for Minnesota. Klobuchar also said she would expand Minnesota's bulk purchasing power of prescription drugs to drive down costs and back a proposal to open the door for safety net hospitals and local pharmacies to benefit from discounted prices on prescription drugs.

Republicans won a big legal victory this year when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed closer coordination with political parties on ad activity, but it’s Minnesota Democrats using that leeway first. The Minnesota DFL, which has far more money at its disposal than the state GOP, is running joint ads with its governor nominee Amy Klobuchar and, as of yesterday, locked in TV time in conjunction with Attorney General Keith Ellison, too. The ads come with a joint disclaimer but tend to be sharper in tone than the candidate’s own. The DFL got some preclearance from Minnesota campaign regulators that the ads wouldn’t run afoul of state laws. In an advisory opinion issued last week , the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board laid out the disclaimer requirements for the ads to be in compliance but noted that there remains “a statutory flaw that should be addressed by the Legislature.” Typically, the advisory opinions offer safe harbor if a complaint is brought although the circumstances of any issue raised could still lead regulatory scrutiny.

Cable TV ads are cropping up in some of the legislative races deemed pivotal to the fight for House and Senate majorities. A DFL-aligned group called the Minnesota Family Prosperity Project is behind some of them. One of its ads targets GOP Rep. Wayne Johnson of Cottage Grove, whose prior race was decided by 327 votes. It frames him as a lawmaker aligned with corporations and “the ultrawealthy” and favoring AI-fueling data centers. Cole Birkeland is the DFL nominee in that east-suburban race. We’ve also seen spots against Republican William Beck who is running for a neighboring, open House seat against DFLer Jen Fox. The project’s last campaign finance report filed ahead of the primary listed less than $5,000 on hand. But the group has proven in the past to scoop up money fast, having spent more than $1.8 million in 2024 and most of it from the liberal advocacy network-funded North Star Prosperity.