Keep an eye on the Minnesota AG’s race for 2026

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The calendar says it’s only odd-year March. But even-year political drama is already taking shape in Minnesota around two big races — governor (the one you expected) and senator (the one you didn’t until Feb. 13, when Sen. Tina Smith announced she would not run again).

Here’s a plea: Put a third contest on your early radar and keep it there through Nov. 3, 2026. Add “attorney general” to Minnesota’s political priority list.

That might seem an unusual request. The attorney general’s race is seldom an attention-getter. The office has been occupied by a DFLer since Warren Spannaus took the keys from Douglas Head in January 1971. Along with secretary of state and state auditor, it’s one of those “constitutional offices” that get second billing, if that.

But that was before the second coming of Donald Trump.

In the six-plus weeks since Trump’s return to the White House, the nation’s 23 Democratic attorneys general have coalesced to form the front line of Trump resistance, filing as of this writing seven lawsuits and six amicus briefs challenging Trump’s actions on constitutional grounds. They seek to stop Trump’s moves to end birthright citizenship, freeze federal funding, cut health research grants, gut federal agencies, take over federal regulatory commissions and more.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has been conspicuous among those AGs — so much so that a nervous school superintendent in Red Wing recently canceled Ellison’s scheduled appearance at a Black History Month event, saying he feared “significant disruptions.”

That school official is evidently afraid of MAGA heat. Ellison appears to be thriving on it.

“President Trump is attacking core American values,” he told me recently. “I want to position myself to protect those values … . We want to be sticking up for our neighbors as much as we can.”

Ellison, 61, has been Minnesota’s attorney general since 2019. But he still sounds like the civil rights attorney that he was when I first met him in 2002, when he was a candidate for the state House. He won over the Star Tribune’s editorial screening team then by talking about his plan to boost voter turnout on the North Side of Minneapolis.

Twelve years in Congress — from 2007 to 2019, a stint that coincided with that of Gov. Tim Walz — convinced Ellison that there ought to be more to public service than casting votes and issuing statements. He gave up a prized safe seat to run for Minnesota AG — an office no African American or Muslim had previously held.

If that isn’t enough evidence that Ellison is willing to take a political risk for the sake of what he deems right, consider his decision to oversee the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer whose knee squeezed life out of George Floyd in May 2020. Ellison got high marks for winning a conviction, but — as he expected — his opposition intensified, too. He won re-election in 2022 by a vote margin of less than 1 percentage point.

Another close election in 2026 looks likely for Ellison — if he seeks a third term. He has not yet announced his intentions. Until he does, pundits will keep his name on lists of possible candidates for “higher” offices.

Take it from a retired pundit: I think Ellison will run for a third term as attorney general. He seems hooked on how his “lower” office lets him make a tangible difference in people’s lives.

“I like to be on the front line, where the action is,” he told me recently. He gets animated describing how his office’s authority as the state’s chief consumer law enforcer has helped reduce auto thefts, curb underage tobacco use, crack down on predatory lending and more.

And now there’s Donald Trump. The Republican president’s power grabs have given new purpose to state AGs who are willing to wade into heavy political waters.

Not many issues have created more waves recently than transgender rights. It’s an issue that was not kind to Democrats in the 2024 election. Some DFL politicians would steer clear of it. But to Ellison, it’s a fight about both civil rights and federalism, and that combination seems like catnip to him.

Democratic AGs scored at least a temporary victory last week when a federal judge’s order blocked Trump from denying federal funds to institutions that provide gender-affirming care. But Trump also seeks to ban transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports. Ellison says that would violate the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

“It offends me that the trans community has been targeted in this way,” he said. “But this is also about the right of Minnesotans to have the laws they want and to change them when they will. We have federalism in this country for a reason.”

The legal tools that Ellison can wield have their limits. The federal judiciary may ultimately side with Trump, not the states.

But with effective resistance from other quarters in short supply, those who want the nation’s constitutional order to survive Trump are increasingly looking to Ellison and his blue-state peers as its crucial defenders. Minnesota’s political players should see his office as more important than ever before.

Lori Sturdevant is a retired Star Tribune editorial writer. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.