Republican Candidates For Attorney General, State Auditor Visit Hermantown
HERMANTOWN, Minn. — Minnesota Republican candidates Jim Schultz, who is running for attorney general, and Ryan Wilson, who is running for state auditor, made a campaign stop in Hermantown on Sunday.
In the AG race, prosecuting criminals is the central theme for Schulz, especially for areas like the twin cities which has seen a large number of violent crimes like shootings and carjackings in recent years.
“So when I’m attorney general, we’re going to support law enforcement, we’re going to partner with them to restore our public safety to our streets to deal with the violent crime, to deal with the drug crime,” Schultz said. “You know, you see the fentanyl crisis, I know it touches here in Hermantown, St. Louis County and the surrounding areas, the fact is, we’re living through an extraordinary challenge right now with fentanyl crisis. We need an attorney general who takes it seriously, we need true leadership throughout our state. We need an attorney general that’s gonna support all 87 counties.”
Meanwhile for state auditor candidate Wilson, financial accountability is the main message.
“They want a state auditor who’s going to be a watchdog for their tax dollars,” Wilson said. “And that’s the message we’ve ran on since day one. We ran on what the state auditor should be doing, what they haven’t been doing, and how they can be better. And how they can protect our tax dollars so that they can go to the things that matter, right. Things like our schools, like our communities, like our law enforcement, and that’s part of why the police endorse me this week, is because they saw the value of that.”
According to the latest poll run by KSTP and Survey-USA, Schultz is the favored candidate to win, coming in at 49% compared to Keith Ellison, the DFL incumbent, at 42%.
Ellison had a similar lead over Schultz in September, but it shrunk last month and has since flipped.
In the state auditor’s race, Wilson now has a lead over DFL incumbent Julie Blaha.
