Schultz: Outside money is reshaping Minnesota politics ― and pushing it more left

The voices of Minnesota’s employers and taxpayers are being overwhelmed by coastal billionaires and powerful unions.

By Jim Schultz
The Minnesota Star Tribune
August 6, 2026

Hennepin County voters recently received a glossy mailer promoting Cedrick Frazier for county attorney. The return address was not in Hennepin County — or anywhere in Minnesota. It was 77 Sands Street in Brooklyn, New York, the address of the national Working Families Party, an organization that has received large donations from billionaire George Soros’ Democracy PAC.

The same organization backed Mary Moriarty for Hennepin County attorney in 2022. Now it is spending to install Frazier, a close partner who endorsed Moriarty, promoted her candidacy and co-chaired her transition committee. Frazier would be a continuation of the Moriarty experiment, and like her, his candidacy is being financially supported by left-wing interests from outside of Minnesota.

All of the above is disturbing. But the point to be made is bigger than one county attorney’s race. The Brooklyn mailers reveal what has happened to Minnesota politics: The voices of Minnesota employers, workers and taxpayers have been overwhelmed by political committees funded by coastal billionaires and by executives of public-sector unions.

This machine is not “grassroots” in any sense of the word. It is a network of wealthy donors, government union political funds and party committees. Although it is certainly the case that Republicans themselves would welcome such investment if given the opportunity, in Minnesota’s current political fundraising landscape, this apparatus tilts overwhelmingly toward the left, as media reports have documented. Money moves through a web of organizations with different names but a common purpose: electing an increasingly ideological DFL majority, now substantially influenced by its Democratic Socialists of America wing.

Coastal billionaires can afford to treat Minnesota as a political laboratory. They will not lose their jobs when businesses stop expanding here. They will not see the value of their homes decline when families leave. They will not be here when the bill comes due.

The executives running public-sector unions have an even more direct interest. Government collects taxes, uses those taxes to fund public payrolls and then negotiates with unions that spend heavily to elect the officials sitting across the bargaining table. The larger and more expensive government becomes, the more power those public-sector union leaders acquire. It is a self-reinforcing system — and taxpayers finance nearly every part of it.

I spend my days talking with Minnesota business leaders. They are not asking government to guarantee their success. They want competitive taxes, predictable regulation, a capable workforce, safe communities and a government that performs its basic functions competently. Those should be uncontroversial priorities.

But their voices are being crowded out by non-Minnesotan political investors who want more government and government unions that benefit from government expansion. The people creating jobs, risking capital and generating the revenue that funds Minnesota government have less influence over its direction than wealthy donors in California, New York and Illinois.

The consequences are no longer theoretical.

Gov. Tim Walz, who has benefited from out-of-state, wealthy donors who have contributed to his campaigns and have been massive contributors to the state DFL Party, campaigned as a moderate who would take into account the voice of the business community. But once Democrats gained complete control of state government, they increased spending by nearly 40% in a single legislative session and enacted roughly $10 billion in tax increases despite inheriting a $19 billion surplus. They imposed an expensive and immensely burdensome paid-leave mandate and a host of other new regulations onto employers and dramatically expanded an already bloated state government that has repeatedly demonstrated it cannot prevent massive fraud.

The result is that Minnesota is now living on inherited economic strength. We remain home to 18 Fortune 500 companies, extraordinary businesses in manufacturing, medical technology, agriculture, finance and retail, and a remarkable workforce. But we rank 33rd in GDP growth, 39th in job growth and 40th in labor-force growth. Nearly 48,000 more residents left Minnesota than moved here between 2020 and 2024.

Every business leader understands what those numbers mean. Capital moves. Talent moves. Entrepreneurs have choices. A state can coast for a while on great companies built by earlier generations, but it cannot tax, regulate and mismanage its way to prosperity indefinitely.

Yet, in addition to its push to elect a left-wing ideologue like Cedrick Frazier, the same political machine is now working to restore a DFL trifecta. If it succeeds, Minnesotans should expect more of the same: higher taxes, more costly mandates and still less accountability for fraud and failure. The agenda will not be written by Minnesota employers or families. It will be written by the interests that paid to elect it.

This is how Minnesota went from a pragmatic state with a remarkable economic ecosystem to a state governed from the hard-left with mediocre economic growth. The balance that once defined our state has disappeared.

What is the takeaway? Minnesota employers and all Minnesotans should step up to provide a counterweight to the current political spending ecosystem that has done so much to enable the agenda of the progressive left. And Minnesotans should reject the influence of very liberal and very non-Minnesotan interests meddling in Minnesota elections.

Jim Schultz
Contributing columnist
Jim Schultz is a contributing columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune. He is president and CEO of the Minnesota Private Business Council.

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