How Do You Solve a Problem Like Keith Ellison?

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN)

Rumors were mounting yesterday morning that Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota congressman since 2007 and the Vice Chair of the DNC, may be exploring a bid for Attorney General of Minnesota.  The current AG Lori Swanson is widely assumed to be mulling a run for governor of the state, and as a result her seat will be open in 2018.  It is relatively unusual for sitting members of Congress to run for a statewide constitutional office that isn’t governor (it’s viewed in some capacities as a step down), and especially considering Ellison’s strong profile in the state (outside of senior senator Amy Klobuchar, he’s arguably the most high-profile current officeholder from the Gopher State), I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the why’s and ramifications of such a jump.

Ellison is clearly an ambitious pol, one who has been trying in recent years to gain a stronger foothold on the national conversation.  In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s devastating losses in 2016, Ellison ran for the DNC Chair in what was largely seen as a proxy battle between the Clinton Wing and the Sanders Wing of the Democratic Party, and while he (like Sanders) lost the primary, he was seen as too strong of an asset not to be given a spot on the DNC leadership, and so Tom Perez appointed him his #2.  Still, though, Ellison clearly wants to make the jump to higher office, but knows that his background and voting/rhetoric history may be damning in a light blue state like Minnesota.

This is because while Minnesota has consistently gone to the Democrats on a presidential level, they have shown a proclivity for a specific type of politician when it comes to statewide elections.  For years they lost repeatedly when it came to statewide races against the Republicans, frequently nominating people like John Marty, Skip Humphrey, and Roger Moe, boring old white guys with ties to the Iron Range who had little connection to the growing base of support in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.  In the past fifteen years, the party has been smarter, nominating figures like Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken who have better connections to the Cities, while still able to connect to rural voters.

Ellison would be the end-game of this trend, as he has shown relatively little interest in the rural parts of the state since he represents Minneapolis in Congress (which is not a rural area), and is much further to the left than even someone like Klobuchar and Franken.  He is also, it has to be said because it’s impossible to deny it could be an issue, a black, Muslim man.  While Minnesotans have elected African-Americans statewide (specifically Supreme Court Justice and Vikings legend Alan Page), they have never done so in a partisan election, and no Muslim-American has ever won a statewide constitutional office in any state.  While we have seen extraordinary progress in terms of the “Bradley Effect” in recent years, this is still Trump’s America and it’s impossible to imagine Ellison’s religion not being something that is part of a stealth “Southern Strategy” campaign in parts of the state that he’d need to win to take a statewide election (specifically St. Louis County), that are predominantly white, Christian communities.  Lest we forget, the Republican nominee for the Senate from Alabama as recently as last month said that Ellison shouldn't be seated in Congress because of his religion-it's hard not to see that being something the GOP would covertly try to insinuate on the campaign trail.

So it is not a small question of whether Ellison would be able to win the AG spot based on both the Bradley Effect and his liberal history.  This might not be a huge issue in a state like Illinois or California, where the primary is basically the general election for Democrats, but Minnesota hasn’t always had a full-slate of Democrats statewide, and it was one of the closest states that did go for Hillary Clinton in 2016.  In an era where Attorneys General have become much higher profile on a national scale (look at all of the lawsuits that have been levied against the Trump administration that might otherwise not have with a Republican politician, including many by AG Swanson from Minnesota), the Democrats may not want to take this risk, even if Ellison is a superhero in many sects of the DFL.

That being said, this could be Ellison acknowledging the Democratic Party’s reluctance to go with someone of his profile.  Obviously someone with ambition, it’s quite possible that Ellison could have sought a larger stage already in 2018 should he have wanted.  The open governorship would have given him a better jumping off point if he someday wanted to pursue the White House, and challenging Tina Smith in the Senate special election would have given him an enormous platform in the national conversation.  Ellison’s passing on this may be an acknowledgement that even he isn’t sure if he could win such high stakes contests, and is perhaps starting with a smaller office with the hope of going larger.  It’s also worth noting that as AG, should he win, Ellison could be a major thorn in the side of the Trump Administration, raising his profile even within the party.

After all, going from Congress to a constitutional office with the hopes of it paying long-range dividends isn’t entirely unprecedented.  Rep. Adam Putnam was seen as a rising star in the House leadership (elected to the House at only the age of 26), but abandoned a congressional leadership path in 2010 to run for Agriculture Commissioner, a statewide office that had none of the power of his perch in Washington, but did make him a statewide-elected official in Florida.  That bet seems likely to pay off this year, with Putnam a frontrunner to win the GOP nomination in a state that has served a launchpad for politicians like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Bob Graham onto the national stage in recent years.  Were he still in Congress, Putnam would have a bevy of congressional votes he’d have to defend (as well as a connection to an unpopular Congress), and also wouldn’t be able to point out that he has won twice statewide already.

That may also be Ellison’s goal here.  He has hit the point in his career where he wants to make a big bet on himself, and would surely start out with the advantage in an AG primary contest.  Were he to win, he would be able to claim that he can win statewide, perhaps trying a primary challenge against Smith in 2020 or a future run for governor.  If he loses, he’s still the DNC Vice Chair and popular enough to get into a future cabinet job…and in a year that is likely to be friendly to the Democrats like 2018, he would know that his statewide prospects are impossible in a light blue state like Minnesota.  How this plays out could be interesting to watch (as the “Bradley Effect” and the “too liberal/conservative” labels have taken a beating in recent years in terms of electoral prognoses), but this could be one of the most-telling down-ballot races of 2018.