Jeff Johnson was angry.

“There is a special place in hell for people who would write an ad like this and think this is acceptable behavior,” Johnson said at a press conference Wednesday. He was referencing a new attack ad sponsored by the DFL-supporting independent expenditure committee called Alliance for a Better Minnesota. In it, a man named Austin tells of being born with a disability and claims that Johnson’s plan for health care could deny him affordable insurance.

“For Jeff Johnson to treat us this way is profoundly shameful,” Austin says.

Johnson has asserted throughout the campaign that he would assure those with pre-existing conditions would have affordable health insurance. ABM and Democratic nominee Tim Walz have responded by claiming putting high-cost patients into high-risk pools would make the insurance purchased there unaffordable.

But the ad and the press conference illustrate a different issue in the 2018 campaign: the clout and impact of independent expenditure campaigns that are separate from campaigns but often work in concert. The spending from these committees dwarfs what candidates can raise and spend.

Outside money

The most recent reports to the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board show that non-candidate committees have spent heavily on state races — outpacing, in many cases, the money spent by candidates themselves. Based on the the reports, independent expenditure campaigns had spent just less than $20 million in campaigns for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor and the Minnesota Legislature. Of that, $13.4 million has been spent to aid DFL candidates, either from electioneering in support of those candidates or against GOP rivals. GOP-leaning committees have spent $6.4 million.

Now, a caveat here: these numbers are current as of Tuesday. Nearly 100 past-due state campaign finance reports and about 100 handwritten reports that were not yet entered (that’s right, handwritten reports) had not been entered in the state’s system. MinnPost removed spending data for candidates who were defeated in primaries, but money spent to affect candidates who won primaries may be included.

No limits

State campaign finance limits cap how much candidates can accept from any single donor. Candidates who opt into the state public subsidy program accept caps on total spending in return for the additional campaign funds from the state.

DFL nominee for governor Walz has a spending cap of $5.039 million. GOP nominee Johnson can spend no more than $4.58 million. (The difference is due to Walz’s status as a first time statewide candidate.) Attorney general candidates Doug Wardlow and Keith Ellison can spend no more than $720,000. And state House candidates have base lids of $65,500 plus the value of the first-time candidate bonus and the contested primary bonus if eligible.

Independent expenditure committees have no limits on how much can be contributed and how much can be spent. One result is Johnson’s own campaign committee spent $2.1 million as of the latest Campaign Finance Board report while the Alliance for a Better Minnesota has already spent $4.1 million against him, with another $500,000 added after the reporting deadline. Though not included in the totals for the general election, ABM also spent $2.5 million against Tim Pawlenty before Johnson bested him in the GOP primary.

All totaled, independent expenditure committees have spent $11.65 million in the governor’s race, with Walz benefiting far more than Johnson: $9.6 million to $2.06 million. But for legislative races, GOP-leaning committees are spending significantly more: $4.3 million, vs. $2.7 million on behalf of DFLers.

ABM is the primary expenditure committee for DFLers and gets most of its money from two other DFL-affiliated committees: WIN Minnesota and the 2018 Fund. Those groups are funded both by wealthy individuals and labor unions. The 2018 Fund also benefited from a $1.9 million donation from State Victory Action, a Democratic organization based in North Carolina that is aimed at winning state legislative races.

ABM is spending primarily in the governor’s race.

Other DFL-affiliated groups are the DFL state Central Committee, the Walz-backing Minnesota Victory Fund. That committee added nearly $3 million since the last finance report, nearly all from the DFL central committee organization.

Supporting GOP candidates are the Freedom Club, a PAC created by Bob and Joan Cummins which is spending to help Johnson’s campaign for governor. Other GOP-leaning committees are the Minnesota Jobs Coalition and a set of organizations connected to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce — the Pro Jobs Majority and the Coalition of Minnesota Businesses.

But the GOP groups, other than the Freedom Club, are concentrating on legislative races.

Different focus

Republicans, who want to maintain or increase their 20-seat majority in the Minnesota House, are spending much more heavily in pursuit of keeping control of the Legislature than the Democrats seeking to wrest control from them.

According to spending reports, independent expenditures to help Republicans (in favor of Republican candidates or against DFLers) weigh in at nearly two times the amount to help Democrats (money spent in favor of DFLers or against Republicans).

Much of that spending is happening in the Twin Cities suburbs.

The suburbs are pretty clearly the battleground this year, said Gina Countryman, the executive director of Minnesota Action Network, a Republican group that has spent in the governor and attorney general races on behalf of Republicans.

These are areas where many voters split tickets in 2016. For Democrats, the challenge will be to pick off Republicans who have weathered tough years for their party in the past by getting those split-ticket voters to vote straight-ticket, Countryman said.

That puts Republicans on the defense in districts like:

• 44A, longtime incumbent Rep. Sarah Anderson’s Plymouth seat
• Roz Peterson’s 56B in Inver Grove Heights.

Anderson and Peterson��s seats are among the 12 that, in 2016, elected Republican representatives the same night they voted for Hillary Clinton and are two major targets for Republican spending. 36A in Champlin, formerly held by Republican Rep. Mark Uglem, is also a top target. It went for Trump but is open this year.

Also in Republican groups’ top five targets are two seats they hope to pick off from the DFL. Apple Valley’s 57A, an open seat Erin Maye Quade stepped away from when she ran for lieutenant governor on Erin Murphy’s ticket (they lost the primary), has seen more spending than any other Minnesota House district on the whole, though far more from Republicans. Another Republican spending target, 37A in Spring Lake Park  went for Trump by a small margin, but elected DFLer Erin Koegel in 2016.

DFL-affiliated groups are spending more in Sarah Anderson’s seat in Plymouth than anywhere else in the House, hoping the longtime Republican incumbent, who has withstood DFL waves in the past, won’t be able to pull it off this year. Other Republican-held seats round out DFLers top five independent expenditure districts, including:

• 34B in Maple Grove, currently held by Republican Dennis Smith;
• Inver Grove Heights’ 52B (Regina Barr);
• Eden Prairie’s 48B (Jenifer Loon);
• and one on the Iron Range, Cohasset’s 5B (Sandra Layman).

With the exception of the Cohasset-area seat, the others are among the 12 Republican-held Minnesota House Districts that favored Clinton in 2016.

Though Republican groups are spending more on the whole in the House, and in most districts, there are some races where DFL groups are spending more than Republicans. One of them is the special election in Senate District 13, in the St. Cloud area, which pits Republican Jeff Howe against Democrat Joe Perske. Control of the Senate wasn’t supposed to be on the ballot this year, but a chain reaction that saw Tina Smith appointed to U.S. Senate and Sen. Michelle Fischbach ascend to lieutenant governor means the Senate — held by Republicans by one seat — is also in play.

The seat is in a fairly Republican territory and had been held by Fischbach for a long time. But the prospect of an open seat and control of the Senate may be attracting money from DFL groups, even if the chances aren’t great. DFL-affiliated groups have spent $675,000 to Republicans’ $354,000.

Republican groups are far-and-away outspending DFL groups in the House, but the opposite is true in the governor’s race, where spending in favor the DFL outstrips spending in favor of Republicans by nearly 5:1.

What it all means

Where the two sides have put their money could be an indicator of where they think they have their best shot to control a branch of government.

Republicans might see maintaining their majority in the House, by either holding on to some, all, or gaining on their margin as their best shot this year.

Johnson was asked about the gap between outside spending for his campaign and the spending to help Walz and said he didn’t know what the election-day impact would be.

“We went into this planning to win it alone and we have had help from some folks and we appreciate that,” he said. “But this is not unusual in Minnesota. The left outside groups almost always spend more than the outside groups on the right, by a lot. The same thing happened four years ago.”

After eight years of control of the governor’s office, and with Walz ahead of Johnson in the polls (within the margin of error, in most), Democrats may be more concerned with keeping control of the governor’s office for another four years. They may also see it as the best bang for their buck, given Republicans’ sizable margin in the House.