# Keith Ellison Democratic **Attorney General of Minnesota** since January 2019, and in 2026 the state official most directly litigating against the federal immigration surge in the Twin Cities. Before that he represented Minnesota's 5th congressional district from 2007 to 2019, as the first Muslim elected to Congress, and was deputy chair of the [[Democratic Party]]'s national committee in 2017–2018 after losing the chair race to Tom Perez. That race was shadowed by his past defense of Louis Farrakhan, which he had repudiated. ## As attorney general - **The Floyd prosecution.** Walz assigned him the case against the officers who killed [[George Floyd]]. [[Derek Chauvin]] was convicted on April 20, 2021 ([[George Floyd Murder and Aftermath Timeline]]). - **Multistate litigation.** He is a regular party to the Democratic attorneys general suits against the administration. - **Operation Metro Surge.** On January 12, 2026, Ellison and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued DHS Secretary [[Kristi Noem]] to halt the deployment of roughly 3,000–4,000 federal agents into the Twin Cities ([[Operation Metro Surge]]). They argued the surge was coercion that violated the [[Tenth Amendment]]. On January 26 Judge Kate Menendez declined to issue a restraining order. She called the situation "shockingly unusual" but said she did not know "what the line is" for a court to stop a lawful enforcement power. The state amended the suit in April with data on the harm the surge was causing. - **The Castro extradition.** On August 18, 2026 he sued Governor [[Greg Abbott]] to compel the extradition of ICE officer [[Christian Castro]], whom Hennepin County had charged over the January shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis ([[ICE Shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis]]). He dropped the suit on September 17, the day Castro was arrested in Minnesota. Abbott's office called the dismissal an "admission of defeat." - **Sanctuary policy.** The Justice Department sued Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Hennepin County in September 2025 over their limits on cooperation with ICE. His office defended the case, and Chief Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, dismissed it in July 2026 on anti-commandeering grounds ([[Sanctuary Jurisdiction]]). ## The counterattack The administration's response has run through the fraud issue rather than through immigration. In June 2026, after a House Oversight Committee report accused Walz and Ellison of letting Minnesota's pandemic-era benefit-fraud schemes grow, Vice President [[JD Vance]] demanded that the Justice Department open a criminal fraud investigation of both ([[Alex Pretti Killing]]). The move took the vault's familiar form: a referral used against an official who is in active litigation against the administration. ## 2026 re-election He is seeking a third term on November 3, 2026. He won the August 11 DFL primary with 84.7%. His opponent is Republican Ron Schutz, former chairman of the Robins Kaplan law firm and chair of Tim Pawlenty's 2012 presidential campaign, who was unopposed in his primary. Ellison won narrowly in 2022. A September 2026 KSTP/SurveyUSA poll had Schutz slightly ahead, 45–43. Republicans have not won the office since 1966 ([[2026 Key State Races Hub]]). The race is a test of whether the state-level resistance strategy has a political cost. Ellison's most visible work of 2025–2026 has been suing the federal government, and his opponent is running on public safety and fraud. ## See also - [[Operation Metro Surge]] · [[Christian Castro]] · [[Mary Moriarty]] · [[Greg Abbott]] - [[Sanctuary Jurisdiction]] · [[Anti-Commandeering Doctrine]] · [[Fight Against Federal Overreach]] - [[Tim Walz]] · [[JD Vance]] · [[2026 Key State Races Hub]] · [[Anti-Trump Resistance Timeline]]