Minnesota voters on Tuesday will decide whether to give Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison a third term or elect private attorney Ron Schutz as the first Republican to hold the office in more than 50 years.

What’s at stake? The attorney general is responsible for representing the state of Minnesota in legal matters like disputes with the federal government, as well as consumer protection and stopping fraud in the state’s Medicaid programs, among other things.

Ellison, a 63-year-old former Congressman, has positioned himself as the best candidate to oppose President Donald Trump, pointing to numerous lawsuits he has filed against the administration — whether it was to challenge Operation Metro Surge or multistate action to release frozen funding for welfare programs.

Schutz, a 70-year-old attorney with extensive courtroom experience in multimillion-dollar litigation, has tied the second-term attorney general to an explosion of fraud in federally funded state government programs.

Heavy spending from outside groups

Political donors have taken notice of what could again be one of Minnesota’s closest races. As of Oct. 19, it had drawn more than $13 million in spending from outside groups.

That already exceeds the roughly $8.5 million in outside spending in 2022, when Ellison narrowly won a second term, defeating GOP challenger Jim Schultz.

The money has fueled an onslaught of attack ads, emails and text messages to voters that have largely served as less filtered versions of the candidates’ criticisms of one another.

Pro-Ellison ads have tried to frame Schutz as a right-wing ally of the president who won’t defend the state. Pro-Schutz groups have pointed to Medicaid fraud and Ellison’s support of a pardon for a child sex offender who faced deportation.

Ellison has stood by his decision, noting that the victim in that case wrote a letter in support. The attorney general sits on the state board of pardons.

Ellison lawsuits

Ellison, who has opposed Trump on everything from restrictions on mail voting to transgender athletes in girls’ sports, argues Schutz would take the state out of legal fights against Trump.

Ellison has noted that Schutz, who is a board member of the conservative Minnesota think tank the Center of the American Experiment, is a critic of his lawsuits but has not provided details on how he’d handle them if elected attorney general.

“He’s had more than enough time to look into the lawsuits that he says are political theater and yet he has not named one that he would withdraw,” Ellison told reporters at the Capitol this month. “We cannot count on Mr. Schutz to stand up to Donald Trump, and that will cost Minnesotans.”

Whether they’re against the Trump administration or certain corporations, Schutz has avoided saying which lawsuits of Ellison’s he would drop. For instance, he said it would be “entirely inappropriate” to comment on Ellison’s ongoing lawsuit against oil companies for allegedly misleading the public on fossil fuels’ connection to human-caused climate change.

When asked about his stance on them in an October debate on Minnesota Public Radio, Schutz said he didn’t “have the resources to dig into those cases,” though he insisted he would “have no problem suing the federal government.”

One specific area where Schutz said he would oppose the Trump administration was when it excluded state and local law enforcement from investigations into the January fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis.

“It’s the only card that the Democrats have in their playbook,” Schutz said of Ellison’s efforts to brand him as a “rubber stamp” or ally of the president. ”I don’t know how I can be more clear than to say I’m not taking orders from that guy. I’ve never met him. I don’t know him. I’ve never donated to his campaigns. Look at my track record.”

Schutz has also defended his roughly $1.7 million stock portfolio managed by RBC Wealth Management, which includes stocks in companies Minnesota has sued under Ellison’s leadership, like Exxon Mobil, Amazon and Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

Ellison, who has not disclosed any significant stock holdings, has tried to use Schutz’s investments to cast doubt on whether his opponent would effectively advocate for the state.

Asked earlier this month about his holdings, Schutz said he had tried cases and won multimillion-dollar verdicts against companies he holds stock in, like Apple. He said he doesn’t personally manage his holdings and would divest from companies Minnesota is suing if elected.

Fraud

Ellison has spent considerable time this election defending his record on addressing fraud in government programs.

The largest single fraud scheme, the pandemic-era Feeding Our Future scandal, cost the state roughly $250 million intended for children’s meals.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office also alleges another $125 million or so in fraud in Medicaid programs and charged more than 30 people since September 2025. Last December, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson estimated Medicaid fraud since 2018 could top $9 billion, a figure disputed by Democratic state officials.

Ellison has pointed to his office’s involvement in fraud investigations, but the primary engine of accountability in that case and others has been federal prosecutions. He’s also pointed to his office’s more than 350 convictions and $90 million in restitution for fraud since taking office.

But Schutz, citing a KSTP-TV report from this summer, said most of those convictions resulted in little or no jail time, and that very little of the restitution resulted in money returned to Minnesota.

While the attorney general does not have the ability to prosecute fraud cases like Feeding Our Future, which involved U.S. Department of Agriculture money, it does have the ability to prosecute Medicaid fraud. Schutz pledged to focus more resources on fraud and to pursue stiffer penalties.

“We’re going to devote more resources. We’re not going to have sweetheart plea deals,” Schutz said at a press briefing outlining his fraud plan.

Ellison said he supported a new law expanding Medicaid fraud investigation capabilities that gave his office more power to pursue fraud cases on its own.

Public safety

Violent crime is on the decline from an early decade high, according to statistics from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Nevertheless, public safety has emerged as an issue in the race.

Ellison highlighted his office’s action on gun control when asked about the issue this month.

“The No. 1 cause of death of people under 18 is guns,” said Ellison, noting his lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers. “If you are not talking about gun violence prevention, you are not talking about public safety.”

Ellison sued Fleet Farm in 2022, accusing the retailer of negligently selling a gun that was ultimately used in a downtown St. Paul bar shooting that killed one and injured 14 others. Fleet Farm settled with the state earlier this year for $1 million and agreed to change its gun sale policies.

Under Ellison’s direction, Minnesota also sued gun manufacturer Glock for making pistols that can be converted into fully automatic weapons. In a Fox 9 interview, Schutz was critical of that lawsuit, calling it an effort to “make sure that law-abiding citizens don’t have handguns.”

Schutz said he’d push to take a more active role in criminal prosecutions if elected. The attorney general is not primarily a public safety-oriented office, but the office can take over criminal cases at the governor’s direction.

Schutz, who is endorsed by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, says he would press the next governor to use that power more often in cases he believes local prosecutors have not pursued aggressively enough.

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