Schultz, Wardlow face off in GOP primary for Minnesota attorney general

The two candidates vying to become Minnesota's first Republican attorney general in half a century are zeroing in on different issues in their final push before next week's decisive primary.

For political newcomer Jim Schultz, tackling rising crime is priority one. "Make Minnesota safe again," his campaign video asserts, highlighting his police union and Republican Party endorsements.

His opponent, Doug Wardlow, has staked out positions to the right of Schultz, including claiming he will "wage war" on the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling allowing abortions.

Whoever survives the Aug. 9 primary will face Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison in November. The GOP hopefuls see this election year as a key opportunity to take the state's top legal office, and they say with increased crime and potential abortion legal battles, the stakes are particularly high.

"We have the wind at our backs," Wardlow said. "All over Minnesota, people are waking up and they are tired of Democrat leaders like Keith Ellison."

On paper, the two Republican attorneys appear similar: They are both from Minnesota, attended law school on the East Coast and live in the suburbs with their young families.

Schultz, 36, of Minnetonka, grew up in a tiny Wright County town and went on to Harvard Law School, a decision he said was partly influenced by the idea that there were some conservative professors there. Before the campaign, he was in-house counsel for the investment firm and hedge fund Värde Partners in Minneapolis and focused on business litigation, regulatory compliance, purchasing negotiations and employment matters.

Wardlow, 44, of Prior Lake, criticized his opponent's lack of courtroom experience, saying he is "woefully unfit for the job." Schultz dismissed the idea and argued he would bring critical management experience to the office.

"The [attorney general] doesn't go to court, and so this hit that significant courtroom experience is needed just doesn't really make sense," Schultz said. "What we need is somebody in that office who can go in there, fundamentally restructure the office, get it away from doing things that aren't intrinsic to the mission of the AG's office, and instead focus on prosecuting criminals."

Both Schultz and Wardlow said they want to bolster the criminal division of the Attorney General's Office to support county prosecutors. Schultz said he would lay off or reassign attorneys focused on consumer protection and regulatory issues in order to grow the ranks of attorneys focused on crime.

"Where businesses are committing serious misconduct, they should be pursued. Now, what it shouldn't be is harassing businesses who are engaged in fundamentally lawful activity," Schultz said, pointing to a lawsuit Ellison's office filed against oil companies arguing they deceived people on climate change.

While Schultz has focused on business law, Wardlow's job history is steeped in politics. The former legislator spent one term in the state House a decade ago, representing the same Eagan area district his father held. This is Wardlow's second attorney general bid after losing to Ellison in 2018 by 4 percentage points — a run that boosted his name recognition.

He is general counsel for MyPillow and previously worked for the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has thrown his support behind Wardlow, including showing up to back him at the state GOP convention in May. At the convention, Lindell reiterated his claims of 2020 election fraud, a message that Wardlow has echoed.

Minnesota has a voter fraud problem, Wardlow said at a news conference last week, adding that he believes the 2020 election was "corrupt and stolen" and must be investigated.

Schultz's campaign website lists "ensuring secure elections and prosecuting election law violations" among his priorities, but he said the 2020 election is not something he is hearing about on the campaign trail. When asked if he believes the outcome of the last presidential election was valid, Schultz repeatedly pivoted to listing issues such as high gas prices and inflation and said, "Joe Biden is the president because I've seen the catastrophe his presidency presents."

"Jim Schultz represents by far where most Republicans are," Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann said of the candidate's policy stances. "Some of the views Wardlow has expressed are narrow and not broadly held."

GOP candidates who win their party's endorsement have typically done well in Minnesota primaries. Wardlow has frustrated some voters by choosing to run without the endorsement, something he repeatedly said he would not do, Hann said.

At the party's state convention, Wardlow secured the most votes in the initial rounds of balloting. But Schultz ultimately walked away with the delegates' blessing after retired judge and former legislator Tad Jude dropped out and endorsed him.

Wardlow said he opted to stay in the race because "the process was tainted" by what he described as lies and a backroom deal.

Contested primaries are difficult, Hann said, as the party and winner need to bring people back together before November.

Intraparty division was evident at Wardlow's news conference last week, where he stood between two posters that said "Anti-life Ellison" and "Pro-choice Jim" and condemned the other candidates' abortion stances. Wardlow said he would investigate abortion providers and work to overturn the 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court's ruling protecting the right to abortion.

Schultz has said he wouldn't use the office to advocate for abortion-related policy. However, he said he believes the "vast majority" of Minnesotans would support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, adding, "I wouldn't see why we couldn't come to some [agreement] on that. I'm pro-life, I would absolutely support that."

Schultz outraised Wardlow by about $42,000, according to preprimary campaign finance reports from the start of the year through mid-July. He also had more than $113,000 left in the bank, while Wardlow had about one-third that sum.

As the Republicans have been competing to represent their party, Ellison has been able to save campaign money, stockpiling nearly $573,000.

"We take this race very seriously because the stakes couldn't be higher. The MN GOP primary for Attorney General has laid bare just how far our opponents are willing to go to attack Minnesotans' rights," Ellison campaign spokeswoman Faisa Ahmed said in a statement. "Minnesota Republicans want to roll back consumer protections, stop investment in public safety, and undermine Minnesotans' freedom to make their own health care decisions."

But both GOP candidates assert that public frustration with Ellison's approach to the job and midterm political momentum are working in their favor. This year, they predicted, Minnesota will elect its first Republican attorney general in decades.