MOORHEAD, Minn. — Gubernatorial candidate and House Speaker Lisa Demuth on Tuesday shared her vision for a Minnesota under Republican leadership during a quick campaign visit to Moorhead.

Demuth, R-Cold Spring, came to the Moorhead Municipal Airport as part of a statewide media tour along with her running mate, Ryan Wilson. Though early in her campaign, Demuth has started to carve out main issues on the economy, education and fighting fraud.

“I believe Minnesota can be stronger and better than where we find ourselves today,” said Demuth, who announced her bid for governor on Nov. 2.

Demuth was elected to the Minnesota House in 2018. She became House minority leader in 2022 and was elected speaker of the House in 2025. During the 2025 legislative session, she led a tied House and negotiated for House Republican priorities in the state’s two-year budget.

During Tuesday’s visit, she talked about Minnesota’s business climate, touching on Moorhead’s proximity to the North Dakota border. She asked if it is easier for businesses to operate in Minnesota or a few miles west in North Dakota.

“Those are important conversations to have,” Demuth said.

Demuth joins a crowded field of Republicans running against incumbent Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat. Other candidates include Rep. Kristin Robbins, of Maple Grove, and two former gubernatorial candidates, Scott Jensen and Kendall Qualls.

Tuesday’s events were the first since Demuth announced Wilson as her running mate on Monday, Nov. 10. Wilson, an attorney, ran for state auditor in 2022. He represented the GOP caucus in the state Supreme Court this year as it debated the timing of a special election that would decide the power in the House.

Wilson said their campaign will take an “all of Minnesota approach” to issues, rather than only focusing on the Twin Cities or rural Minnesota.

Earlier on Tuesday, during a campaign stop at the Duluth International Airport, Demuth criticized Walz and other Democrats for spending an $18 billion budget surplus in 2023. She also cited a high tax burden, both on individuals and corporations, and noted that only half of all children can read at grade level.

Meanwhile, she hammered the “record fraud under the leadership of Tim Walz” — with recent scandals including the Feeding our Future nonprofit and the state’s federally funded housing stabilization program.

“The vision that I have for Minnesota is a stronger and better Minnesota,” Demuth said. “An economy that Minnesotans can thrive. Businesses can thrive here, stay in Minnesota and grow in Minnesota. Our families can afford their lives. Our kids deserve to have an excellent education.”

Demuth’s media tour on Tuesday also included stops in Mankato and Paynesville.

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Walz is currently unopposed in the DFL field as he seeks to become the first governor to win a third four-year term. The party last week blasted Demuth as a “corporate candidate” who would “cut taxes for massive corporations while cutting funding for schools and seniors.”

“The CEOs and right-wing corporate lobbyists picked Lisa Demuth because they know she’ll protect hedge funds over health care,” DFL Chair Richard Carlbom said in a statement.

A Republican hasn’t won a statewide contest in Minnesota since 2006. Wilson came close three years ago, falling just 0.34% short of incumbent State Auditor Julie Blaha.

The primary election is Aug. 11, 2026. The general election is Nov. 3, 2026.

Duluth News Tribune reporter Tom Olsen contributed to this report.

By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump boasts that his tariffs protect American industries, lure factories to the United States, raise money for the federal government and give him diplomatic leverage.

Now, he’s claiming they can finance a windfall for American families, too: He’s promising a generous tariff dividend.

The president proposed the idea on his Truth Social media platform Sunday, five days after his Republican Party lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere largely because of voter discontent with his economic stewardship — specifically, the high cost of living.

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The tariffs are bringing in so much money, the president posted, that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.’’

Budget experts scoffed at the idea, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for DOGE dividend checks financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.

“The numbers just don’t check out,″ said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

Detail are scarce, including what the income limits would be and whether payments would go to children.

Even Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sounded a bit blindsided by the audacious dividend plan. Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Bessent said he hadn’t discussed the dividend with the president and suggested that it might not mean that Americans would get a check from the government. Instead, Bessent said, the rebate might take the form of tax cuts.

The tariffs are certainly raising money — $195 billion in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, up 153% from $77 billion in fiscal 2024. But they still account for less than 4% of federal revenue and have done little to dent the federal budget deficit — a staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.

Budget wonks say Trump’s dividend math doesn’t work.

John Ricco, an analyst with the Budget Lab at Yale University, reckons that Trump’s tariffs will bring in $200 billion to $300 billion a year in revenue. But a $2,000 dividend — if it went to all Americans, including children — would cost $600 billion. “It’s clear that the revenue coming in would not be adequate,” he said.

Ricco also noted that Trump couldn’t just pay the dividends on his own. They would require legislation from Congress.

Moreover, the centerpiece of Trump’s protectionist trade policies — double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country in the world — may not survive a legal challenge that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a hearing last week, the justices sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has authority under the Constitution to levy taxes, including tariffs.

If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may be refunding money to the importers who paid them, not sending dividend checks to American families. (Trump could find other ways to impose tariffs, even if he loses at the Supreme Court; but it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.)

Mainstream economists and budget analysts note that tariffs are paid by U.S. importers who then generally try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.

The dividend plan “misses the mark,” the Tax Foundation’s York said. ”If the goal is relief for Americans, just get rid of the tariffs.’’

By MARK KENNEDY, Associated Press

Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is mourning the death of one of his oldest friends — his show’s bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III.

Kimmel announced Escobedo’s death Tuesday on Instagram, saying “that we are heartbroken is an understatement.” Escobedo was 59.

Escobedo and Kimmel met as children in Las Vegas, where they grew up across the street from each other.

“We just met one day on the street, and there were a few kids on the street, and him and I just became really close friends, and we kind of had the same sense of humor. We just became pals, and we’ve been pals ever since,” Escobedo said in a 2022 interview for Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection oral history archive, disclosing that he and Kimmel were huge fans of David Letterman as kids.

FILE – Cleto Escobedo III, left, and Guillermo Rodriguez from Jimmy Kimmel Live arrive at the Imagen Awards on Aug. 12, 2011, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Vince Bucci, File)

Escobedo would grow up to become a professional musician, specializing in the saxophone, and touring with Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phillip Bailey and Paula Abdul. He recorded with Marc Anthony, Tom Scott and Take Six. When Kimmel got his own ABC late-night talk show in 2003, he lobbied for Escobedo to lead the house band on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with,” Kimmel told WABC in 2015. “And there’s nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him.”

In 2016, on Escobedo’s 50th birthday, Kimmel dedicated a segment to his friend, recalling pranks with a BB gun or mooning people from the back of his mom’s car.

“Cleto had a bicycle with a sidecar attached to it. We called it the side hack. I would get in the sidecar and then Cleto would drive me directly into garbage cans and bushes,” Kimmel recalled.

News of Escobedo’s death comes after Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was abruptly canceled. David Duchovny, Joe Keery and Madison Beer were set as the show’s guests. The date and cause of Escobedo’s death weren’t immediately known.

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Escobedo’s father is also a member of the Kimmel house band and plays tenor and alto saxophones. In January 2022, the father-son duo celebrated nearly two decades of performing on-screen together.

“Jimmy asked me, ‘Who are we going to get in the band?’ I said, ‘Well, my normal guys,’ and he knew my guys because he had been coming to see us and stuff before he was famous, just to come support me and whatever. I’d invite him to gigs, and if he didn’t have anything to do he’d come check it out, so he knew my guys,” Escobedo recounted in the 2022 interview. “Then he just said, ‘Hey, man, what about your dad? Wouldn’t that be kind of cool?’ I was like, ‘That would be way cool.’”

In the 2022 interview, Escobedo said the bandleader job had one major benefit: family time.

“Touring and all that stuff is fun, but it’s more of a young man’s game. Touring, also, too, is not really conducive for family life. I’ve learned over the years, being on the road and watching how hard it is, leaving your kids for so long. Sometimes they’re babies; you come back and then they’re talking, it’s like, ‘What?’” he said.

Escobedo is also survived by his wife Lori and their two children.

“The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true. Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers,” Kimmel wrote.

Few Vikings have been more consistent than receiver Jalen Nailor of late. He caught a back shoulder to seal the win over the Detroit Lions, then followed it up with the best showing of his career in Sunday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

“Sometimes they’re going to take away our best guy and the other guys have to step up,” said Nailor, who finished with five catches for 124 yards and a touchdown. “It was me today and I made the most of those opportunities.”

Nailor breakout didn’t surprise head coach Kevin O’Connell when he was asked about it after the game, nor did it surprise offensive coordinator Wes Phillips 48 hours later.

“I saw this type of performance coming from him,” Phillips said. “It was a matter of him getting those opportunities and being in the right place regardless of the play or the progressions. He’s just a guy that consistently wins on tape. We’ve got a lot of guys that can do that, and the ball found him.”

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jalen Nailor (1) pulls down a quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) pass in front of Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey (44) for a 62 yard catch in the first quarter of a NFL game at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

There were a number of plays from Nailor that stood out. He caught a deep pass from quarterback J.J. McCarthy on the opening possession, then raced up the field for a 62-yard gain. He later hauled in an intermediate crosser over the the middle for an 18-yard gain.

“I’ve said it since Week 1 that Speedy was going to show up for us,” McCarthy said. “There are going to be a lot more games like that for Speedy.”

That’s a nickname Nailor has carried since he was a little kid. He garnered the nickname in childhood because, well, he was always much faster than his peers. It’s stuck with him into adulthood because, well, that’s still very much the case.

The ability to separate from defenders played a role in Nailor being selected by the Vikings in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. He’s steadily carved out a niche for himself since then, despite being taken in a later round.

Though he has never been a focal point for the Vikings with all the the other weapons they have on offense, Nailor has earned the respect of his teammates by doing the dirty work behind the scenes. He took pride in that part, knowing if he continued to do developed, his moment was eventually going to come.

That’s exactly what happened for Nailor. After making a splash in the early stages of the game, Nailor flashed again down the stretch, keeping a drive alive with an acrobatic catch, then toe tapping in the back of the end zone for a score a few plays later.

“A heck of a catch,” O’Connell said. “I thought Speedy was huge for us really taking advantage of those opportunities.”

The only problem with Nailor balling out for the Vikings is that they most likely won’t be able to keep him. He is set to be a free agent in the offseason, and should be in line for a significant pay raise.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility for Nailor to garner a deal that pays him somewhere near $15 million per year when comparing his skill set to the rest of the market.

Baltimore Ravens receiver Rashod Bateman’s contract has an average annual value of $12.25 million, Atlanta Falcons receiver Darnell Mooney’s contract has an average annual value of $13 million and Buffalo Bills receiver Khalil Shakir’s contract has an average annual value of $13.25 million.

There’s a chance Nailor’s contract could clear those numbers if he continues to produce at a high level.

“We’re always confident in the guys in our room to make those plays when they get those opportunities,” star receiver Justin Jefferson said. “I’m very proud of him for coming up clutch and doing what we expect him to do.”

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