For those of you not following Minnesotan political news on a regular basis, it’s worth noting that the MN-01 special election has a fairly wild backstory. This seat was held by Republican Jim Hagedorn until he died from kidney cancer in February. One of the people now running to take over his seat in the Republican primary is his widow, Jennifer Carnahan, whom he married in 2018.
But this is not an ordinary widow-filling-seat-of-dead-husband situation. Carnahan is hugely controversial, even within the Minnesota GOP, thanks to a series of scandals that culminated in her being forced to step down as party chair (though not before casting the tie-breaking vote on her own severance payout). Her biggest mess: Close ties to Tony Lazzaro, a businessman who ran a PAC that donated tens of thousands of dollars to GOP candidates, including Hagedorn. Lazzaro and Carnahan’s friendship included running a podcast together and heading to Vikings games with Hagedorn in tow. But that came to an end last fall when Lazzaro was arrested on charges of child sex trafficking that somehow also involved the chair of the College Republicans at the University of St. Thomas. Going back and looking at that story again reminded me of all the amazingly bizarre details it involved, in particular the list of things the Feds found in Lazzaro’s condo when it was raided: $371,000 in U.S. cash (plus some other foreign currency), more than a kilo of gold and 15 cell phones.
Also, Hagedorn’s family is currently suing Carnahan over loans for medical bills that she was supposed to pay them back for from her inheritance.