On Friday, Alpha News published a column by Mazeppa New House Republican Caucus leader Steve Drazkowski: Minnesota GOP swamp creatures trying to pick their own legislators. The Draz asserted:
Unfortunately, the history of the “Jobs Coalition” punching at GOP-endorsed conservative legislators and candidates is too well established. In 2018, they spent significant resources against the most conservative candidates in primary races … only to see us lose the House majority months later after our side ran out of cash. This year seems to be stacking up similarly with more bad decisions with conservative donors’ limited resources.
That claim appears to be misleading. We've looked at the MN Jobs Coalition 2018 year-end report, and discovered that the political fund only attacked one Republican candidate that year: Brad Ganzer, the Republican endorsed candidate who was defeated in the 2018 Republican primary for Minnesota House District by Kristin Robbins, who won the seat in November.
Robbins was endorsed by "retiring Rep. Joyce Peppin, Maple Grove Mayor Mark Steffenson, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis and the TwinWest PAC," according to a profile of both candidates published in late July 2018 by the local paper, the Press and News.
The fund spend $7,718.00 in online advertising and mail against Ganzer, while plunking down $5,771.22 on Robbins' behalf in the primary.
Now Ganzer did enjoy Drazkowski's support in the primary, as well as the that of the Republican Party, but that$5,771.22 wasn't enough to carry the day on the primary. But it certainly didn't lose the district for the Republican Party.
Indeed, that's a drop in the bucket for a political fund that spent $1,372,963.31 for the year in 2018. For more on that spending, check out MinnPost's Well, we finally know how much the Minnesota Jobs Coalition spent on the 2018 election:
The bulk of the money the Jobs Coalition spent in 2018 went to independent expenditures in Minnesota House races.
Independent expenditures are dollars spent to influence elections by groups not affiliated with campaigns who are not allowed to coordinate with candidates.
Most of that money was spent in high-stakes suburban House seats that saw lots of spending from other groups, too. But rather than send election communications to boost the GOP candidate, most of the money was spent attacking the DFL rival.
The Jobs Coalition spent $147,000, for example, in Blaine’s 37B to attack Democrat Amir Malik in an effort to help incumbent Republican Nolan West hold onto the seat (West was successful in that effort).
It spent nearly as much, $135,000, in Spring Lake Park’s 37A, to attack DFLer Erin Koegel in an attempt to help the Republican candidate Anthony Wilder win. Koegel retained the seat.
It spent $108,000 in Savage-area 56A to help incumbent Republican Drew Christensen win by attacking DFLer Hunter Cantrell (Cantrell won) , and $107,000 in 57A, the open Apple Valley seat, against the Democrat to help Republican Matt Lundin win. The seat stayed in DFL hands with a Robert Bierman win.
Of the 18 races where the coalition spent the most money, the Republican candidate was successful in just four.
Nope, those "significant resources" were spent attacking DFLers in what was a bad year for Republicans in Minnesota.
We've extracted the summary of that report and the list of independent expenditures within it (the full report can be found here by selecting it from the online filings). And yes, the report's IE confirm our earlier post, MN Jobs Coalition turns on Munson; spent $82,308.24 against 2018 special election DFL opponent Melissa Wagner.
MN Jobs Coalition IE spending 2018 year-end report extracted and uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd:
Related posts:
- MN Jobs Coalition turns on Munson; spent $82,308.24 against 2018 special election DFL opponent Melissa Wagner
- Is MNGOP out to get Jeremy Munson?
Photo: A lit piece for Brad Ganzer, the only 2018 Republican primary candidate against whom the MN Jobs Coalition spend money. Via Facebook.
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