Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison used a raucous get-out-the-vote rally in Duluth to frame the 2026 midterms as a personal and political reckoning with President Donald Trump, telling supporters he cannot wait for Election Day so that voters can deliver "reckoning and retribution" on the president who once threatened Minnesota with the same language.
Speaking in a Teamsters flight jacket before a crowd that included labor activists and local candidates, Ellison blended a populist economic message with a sharp-edged attack on Trump, his Republican opponent Ron Schutz, and the corporate interests he says have rigged the economy against working families for five decades.
An Economic Message Built on 'Affording Your Life'
Ellison opened by introducing the crowd to "Jenny," a paraprofessional and mother of two in her mid-30s who told him she no longer measures the cost of filling her gas tank in dollars but in trips to the plasma donation center. He said what once cost $35 to $40 now runs $80, requiring two plasma visits to cover.
He paired that story with the more painful one of Nicole Holt Smith, a leader of the Insulin for All movement, whose 26-year-old son Alec died after rationing insulin that cost $1,300 a month once he aged off his mother's insurance. Ellison said that conversation in a church basement convinced him to run for attorney general in the first place.
From those stories he built the slogan emblazoned on a large yellow sign behind him: "Afford your life." He insisted the phrase was not the product of a focus group but of Nicole's grief, and argued that in the richest country in history no one should have to sell blood to get around or die because they cannot afford medicine.
Suing the Insulin Cartel and Corporate Power
Ellison pointed to his first lawsuit as attorney general, against the insulin cartel, as proof that enforcement can lower prices. He said insulin now costs $35 a month for everyone, and he credited decades-old antitrust law that made it illegal for cartels to collude against consumers on life-saving drugs.
He then listed a series of other cases: suing Agri Stats for letting big meat packers see each other's costs and production so they could raise grocery prices, suing internet lenders charging 800 percent interest, and suing door-to-door scammers, slumlords, trailer park owners, charities that misuse donations, and nonprofit hospitals that fail to provide required charity care.
The core job of the Minnesota attorney general, he argued, is to fight concentrated corporate power alongside ordinary people. "If you don't want to do it, you can go the hell on out of here," he said, drawing loud applause.
Targeting Trump on Prices, Corruption, and War
Ellison described the affordability crisis as the product of four decades of deliberate redistribution of wealth upward, through unbridled mergers, trade deals that offshore jobs, and tax cuts for billionaires. He called Trump the "ugliest personification" of that legacy, even if he did not create it.
He blamed the war with Iran for driving up gas and diesel prices, tariffs and trade wars for raising the cost of nearly everything else, and tax cuts for billionaires for being paid for with cuts to health care. He also called Trump the most nakedly corrupt president in history, citing a golden ballroom and crypto dealings.
Ellison seized on reports that Trump called affordability a hoax, and tied the president to his opponent, saying Schutz called it "preposterous" to center affording your life as the attorney general's mission. "Trump and Schutz are birds of a feather, and you know what they do? They flock together," he said.
Conflicts of Interest and the Schutz Challenge
Ellison cited a report in The Reformer that Schutz's financial disclosure lists 174 stocks worth at least $10,000 each, which he characterized as 174 conflicts of interest. He asked how Schutz could sue Meta, TikTok, Google, or Amazon while profiting from their stock.
By contrast, Ellison said he is suing Meta, TikTok for harming kids' mental health and enabling sexual exploitation, and Google and Amazon for driving up costs. He also said he is defending Minnesota's bipartisan law protecting children from being "nudeified" online against a challenge from Elon Musk, vowing to fight it "to the bottom line."
He noted that Musk recently dropped $2 million into a mega interest group running negative ads against him, dismissing the money as "lint at the bottom of his pocket" and urging supporters to ignore the advertising.
Seventy-Five Lawsuits and Billions Blocked
Ellison said he is proud to have sued Trump 75 times, and he recounted the victories: beating back tariffs on Minnesota farmers that devastated the soybean export market, stopping a post office plan to compile a list of mail voters, and suing to restore food assistance during the longest shutdown in American history.
He also said his office sued immediately when Trump tried to end birthright citizenship and beat him at every stage, including in the Supreme Court. Added up, he said, the money his office blocked Trump from taking out of Minnesota exceeds $8 billion.
He mocked Schutz for calling those lawsuits political theater while once seeking Trump's endorsement and lobbying to be named U.S. attorney in Minnesota, a post for which he was passed over.
Fraud, Division, and a Closing Appeal
On fraud, Ellison said Republicans talk about little else, and he agreed that stealing from public programs is evil. But he noted his office has prosecuted and convicted more than 350 people for Medicaid fraud and worked with the legislature to lengthen sentences for fraudsters, while his opponent asked lawmakers not to pass that bill.
He accused Trump of pardoning more than 70 fraudsters without comment, and said his office convicts someone of fraud roughly every eight days.
Ellison closed by describing the election as the verge of a great American renaissance for middle-class and working people, and he cast the choice as solidarity against division. He pledged to push back on scapegoating of immigrants, trans neighbors, and women seeking to make their own health care choices, and he urged every supporter to reach out to young voters, newly naturalized citizens, and those who have changed their minds.
With a better future, in his telling, only ten days away, his final message was simple: "Let's go get our people and let's go win."
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