ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Democratic attorneys general have operated for two years as the tip of the spear in their party’s confrontations with President Donald Trump, suing him 100 times on issues ranging from the deployment of National Guard troops to tariffs and the withholding of federal funds.
But a week before Election Day, it remains unclear whether midterm voters will fortify that front by electing Democratic attorneys general in Kansas and Iowa, or take down two of its members, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Kris Mayes of Arizona.
In a midterm cycle where Democrats appear poised to make significant gains in Congress, governorships and statehouses, the races for attorney general are murkier. Often they hinge on localized concerns such as crime and public safety that can favor Republicans. Sometimes they can also be caught up in a nationalized political environment.
For Republicans, national worries loom large in states such as Iowa and Georgia. Adam Piper, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association, warned in a memo last month, “Current alarms are not smoke detectors beeping from burnt popcorn, but indicators of fires in states that Republicans have taken for granted for decades.”
The biggest GOP worry is in Kansas, where the incumbent attorney general, Kris Kobach, a longtime conservative fixture and sometime lightning rod, faces a rematch against Chris Mann, a former police officer and prosecutor. Kobach has cautioned that his race could be affected by the U.S. Senate contest, in which Democrats have been energized by Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, against the incumbent, Sen. Roger Marshall.
For Democrats, the headache is in Minnesota, where the attorney general, Keith Ellison, is fighting for his political life. At a rally this month in Rochester, Minnesota, Zack Filipovich, the Democratic candidate for state auditor, pleaded Ellison’s case for him.
“Our attorney general is here to protect all of us from everything coming at us from the White House, from the Trump administration, and by his cronies in Congress,” Filipovich said, as Ellison stood nearby.
Of 30 states electing attorneys general on Nov. 3, eight are considered competitive by campaign strategists and MultiState, a government relations firm tracking statehouse races. Out of those states, which include battlegrounds including Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada, five have Democratic attorneys general, and three have Republicans.
Republicans believe they can flip Michigan, where a high-profile U.S. Senate race and control of the state Legislature are also at stake. Two county prosecutors are vying to succeed Dana Nessel: Eli Savit, a progressive Democrat and former clerk to Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Doug Lloyd, a Republican prosecutor with three decades of experience.
In Florida, the Republican attorney general, James Uthmeier, who was tapped by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February to replace Ashley Moody when she was appointed to the U.S. Senate, is facing José Javier Rodríguez, a former state legislator and assistant labor secretary in the Biden administration. Buoyed by a late $5 million injection from the Democratic Attorneys General Association, Democrats have hammered Uthmeier for his connection to the DeSantis administration’s steering of $10 million in legal settlement money to a charity linked to the governor’s wife.
In Arizona, Mayes -- who won by just 280 votes in 2022 -- faces Warren Petersen, the state Senate president, who has repeatedly questioned the 2020 presidential election results.
But Minnesota is the marquee matchup.
The state has been a focus of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, but has also been reeling from a social services fraud scandal that prompted Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, to forgo a third term. Though crime rates have fallen, Republicans have seized on public safety anxieties after recent gang-related suburban shootings.
No Republican has won statewide office since Tim Pawlenty was reelected governor in 2006, and Trump remains deeply unpopular. Yet approval ratings are also sagging for many Democrats, including Ellison, a polarizing progressive and former member of Congress seeking a third term.
Hoping to unseat him is Ron Schutz, a longtime trial lawyer and Republican activist backed by at least $6.8 million flowing in to defeat Ellison.
The Schutz campaign did not respond to requests for comment. In debates, however, Schutz has slammed Ellison over the fraud scandal; Minnesota, known for its 10,000 lakes, is now “the land of 10,000 frauds,” he said. He also criticized Ellison’s role in pardoning a Laotian immigrant convicted of child sexual abuse who was subsequently deported by federal immigration authorities.
Schutz sidestepped questions regarding his views on state lawsuits against the Trump administration. He did agree with Ellison, however, that the federal government should not have blocked local authorities from investigating the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In an interview, Ellison defended his record, stressing his consumer protection efforts to bring down costs, such as a settlement with drug manufacturers to cap insulin prices and one with tribal businesses to stop predatory lending.
Of the 75 multistate lawsuits Minnesota has joined, the most galling, he said, was the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold food stamps during last year’s government shutdown.
“You’ve got to have somebody who will say, ‘The 10th Amendment means that states have some sovereignty,’” he said. “The federal government can’t just roll over us and take our money whenever they feel like it.”
In crucial Twin Cities suburbs such as Eden Prairie in Hennepin County and Shakopee in Scott County, some voters viewed the race as a referendum on Trump. Others saw it as a vote on combating fraud.
Outside the Eden Prairie library, Julimar Castro, 40, said the fraud scandal had been “blown out of proportion” and the Republican Party was being “overtaken by bullies.”
“I usually don’t vote by party, but this year I am,” said Castro, a mental health professional. “All Democrats.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.