Minnesota GOP still owes Mayo Civic Center $16K, underscoring party's money problems as 2024 election looms

Aug. 1—ROCHESTER — If money is the lifeblood of politics, the Republican Party of Minnesota stands in need of a major transfusion.

Concern over the financial condition of the Minnesota GOP spiked earlier this year when it was revealed that the party had $54 in its federal campaign account and $336,000 in debt at the end of May.

The party's financial difficulties were underscored locally: The state GOP still owes Mayo Civic Center $16,000, three months after holding its state convention in Rochester last May.

The dire state of the party's finances follows a 2022 election where Democrats won the governorship and both chambers of the Legislature, setting the stage for a legislative session in which Democrats moved the state in a decidedly leftward direction after passing a raft of progressive legislation.

A financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission last week revealed that the Minnesota GOP had around $200,000 in its federal campaign account at the end of June and $361,000 in debt.

David Hann, Minnesota GOP chairman, said it's not unusual for a major party to suffer a slump in fundraising after suffering defeat in a previous election. But he predicted that the GOP's prospects would brighten as GOP donors and voters awakened "to the evidence of what the DFL majorities did" in the last session, which he said will be "devastating to the economy and to the people of the state."

In the 2022 election, the GOP lost every statewide election — for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general — continuing an unbroken losing streak in statewide elections that dates back to 2006.

"What we found is our donors are now quite interested in trying to find ways to throw these majorities out and get some more common-sense people in the Legislature," Hann said.

Still given the importance of money in elections, the GOP's financial condition paints a concerning picture as it gears up for the 2024 presidential election. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar will be seeking a fourth term. The election will also decide control of the state House.

"We expect we're going to have a good year of fundraising at the end of the year," Hann said. "We will be in a strong position to win next year in the House elections."

Steven Schier, a Minnesota political analyst, said the state GOP has been plagued by financial struggles for a number of years now. The DFL's financial advantage proved to be decisive when the DFL swept the GOP in all four statewide races last year.

At this point, the financial playing field continues to favor the Minnesota DFL Party, which reported having about $782,000 in its federal campaign account at the end of June and no debt.

"Its (funding issues) are just more of the same," Schier said. "I think the fact that they were so underfunded in the last election, helps to explain how Democrats came to get control of both the state Legislature and the governorship."

The GOP currently owes Mayo Civic Center $16,000. That's down from $21,000 reported earlier this month, after the center received a $5,000 payment on July 31, said Bill Von Bank, vice president of marketing and communications for Experience Rochester, which manages the civic center.

Von Bank said it's unusual for the civic center to be holding an unpaid bill after hosting a major-party convention, but said "we expect full payment over the next few months."

Schier said the DFL has for a while now enjoyed a financial advantage over the state GOP, in part because of a flood of donations from the East and West coasts "that influences the outcomes of a whole bunch of elections in Minnesota."

"You don't have a comparable Republican pipeline of out-of-state money in Minnesota," he said. "I don't know how the GOP can overcome that structural problem."

The GOP's fundraising difficulties point to other underlying problems facing the GOP, particularly as it relates to candidate quality and messaging. Quality candidates draw money. But the GOP has recently struggled to field quality candidates "who could run competitive races," Schier said.

"When you have that problem at the top of the ticket, it hurts your party in all sorts of ways," he said.

Hann disagreed with that critique.

"We've got some good ones and less good ones, and so do the Democrats," he said.

Quality candidates are important, but it's not always true that the best man wins. Money also comes into play. And the DFL, he said, spent "tons and tons" of money to demagogue issues and persuade people of something "that wasn't true," and that decided the race.

In particular, DFL-aligned groups spent $20 million on ads warning people that the GOP was going to eliminate abortion. Hann calls the DFL's ads on abortion a "big lie," because the state's constitution guarantees the right to an abortion and no governor or legislature can change that.

In the run-up to the GOP's state convention, gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen said he would ban abortions if elected. After winning the endorsement, Jensen shifted his stance and claimed abortion was not on the November ballot. He said abortion would remain a constitutionally protected right until the constitution was changed through a statewide vote.

Going into the 2022 election, many prognosticators predicted that a red wave would sweep the country and bring Republican majorities to statehouses. At the state level, high inflation and fear over rising crime, particularly in the Twin Cities, were seen as advantages that would boost GOP prospects.

Instead, the DFL won unified control over St. Paul, sometimes winning seats by a tiny fraction of votes. DFL leaders pointed to abortion and election denialism by some GOP candidates as deciding factors.

If Donald Trump wins the GOP presidential nomination next year, that could pose greater challenges for the state party. Trump lost Minnesota by 7 percentage points. He faces an array of federal charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents, as well as his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and retain presidential power.

"The extent that he is the face of the Republican Party in Minnesota, they're going to have problems up and down the ballot," Schier said.

Hann said a

Trump nomination remained a hypothetical,

whereas Democrats' lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden and his effort to win a second term was a clear-cut political fact. Republicans don't know who their presidential nominee is going to be, but Democrats know who theirs will be, and many are not happy about it.

"You don't think Biden, at the top of the ticket, is a problem," Hann said. "There's a long way to go for Republicans (until they pick their candidate), but we do know where Democrats are. And we do know Democrats are very, very concerned about Joe Biden at the top."