The fraud problem

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of Thinking Minnesota magazine.

Minnesotans respond to the corruption plaguing our state

Minnesota has a fraud problem.” That’s what Andrew Luger, former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, said as he finished his term. As the weeks and months went by and more state-run programs came under scrutiny, it became apparent that this “problem” came with a price tag of over $1 billion, according to Luger’s replacement Joe Thompson, and Minnesota’s taxpayers are on the hook. In fact, that’s enough money to cut our state’s projected budget shortfall in half.

This fraud epidemic prompted the most recent Thinking Minnesota Poll to ask average Minnesotans the question posed on the cover of this issue: “Is Minnesota the nation’s most corrupt state?” The consensus is “Yes.” Minnesotans are very aware of the pervasive fraud in state government, put most of the blame on Gov. Tim Walz, and are ready for significant reforms to finally bring fraud and corruption to an end.

As always, our poll was conducted by Meeting Street Insights, a nationally recognized polling operation based in Charleston, S.C. Interviews were completed Sept. 2-5, 2025, among 500 registered voters in Minnesota who voted in the Nov. 5, 2024 election using a mix of cellphone and landline interviewing. The margin of error is +-4.38 percent.

Awareness

We first set out to test whether awareness of fraud in Minnesota had permeated beyond the headlines and into the discourse of average Minnesotans. As it turns out, a lot of Minnesotans believe there is a lot of fraud going on in our state. Specifically, 41 percent of respondents believe there is “a lot” of fraud in Minnesota state government. An additional 27 percent believe there is “some” fraud. Just to be sure, we next asked respondents an open-ended question, and without prompting, 27 percent were able to name Feeding Our Future as an example of fraud in state government. That is a very high level of awareness for one specific program.

The awareness of the Feeding Our Future fraud grew to 69 percent when respondents were prompted with a list of fraud stories in Minnesota. The most recent story involving housing stabilization programs was recognized by 52 percent of respondents.

Concern

Awareness is a measure of who’s paying attention to news coverage, but does anyone really care about fraud? Yes: Sixty-seven percent of respondents told us they are concerned about fraud in state government, with 38 percent “very concerned.” As Bill Glahn chronicles in this issue’s cover story, the criminal aspect of fraud is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s office as they rack up 55 convictions in Feeding Our Future alone. But Minnesotans see the fraud issue as more than just one-off crimes committed by bad actors. Sixty-one percent of Minnesotans believe the fraud is linked to a broader systemic problem in state government.

Surprisingly, only 32 percent think Minnesota has more fraud than other states. If you enter “worst state COVID fraud” into Google, Minnesota fraud dominates the first page of results, with national news stories from NBC News, The Guardian, The Washington Times, and FOX News. Minnesota homerism is alive and well, even when it comes to fraud.

Blame

As Gov. Tim Walz announces his intentions to seek a rare third term, he would be wise to prepare an explanation for the fraud that occurred in state agencies under his watch. That’s because 56 percent of poll respondents don’t think he’s done enough to prevent fraud in Minnesota. The same is true for Attorney General Keith Ellison, with 55 percent saying he hasn’t done enough to prevent fraud.

Worse yet for Walz, a whopping 50 percent of respondents say fraud will be a major factor in their vote for governor. Not only are Minnesotans aware of fraud and concerned about fraud, half of our poll respondents said they are ready to hold Walz accountable at the ballot box.

The “major factor” numbers are marginally better (46 percent) for Attorney General Keith Ellison, while fewer respondents are ready to blame the State House (38 percent) or the Senate (40 percent).

Diving deeper into the numbers reveals another concern for Gov. Walz. Suburban respondents stood out in the poll as particularly concerned about fraud at 70 percent. Sixty-one percent of suburbanites don’t think Gov. Walz has done enough to prevent fraud, and 51 percent say it will be a major factor in their vote for governor next year. While suburbanites may be willing to pay some of the highest taxes in the state, they obviously don’t appreciate their tax dollars being wasted or stolen through fraud.

The Thinking Minnesota Poll also asked a traditional “right direction/wrong track” question, and for the fourth consecutive poll, a plurality of Minnesotans think the state is on the wrong track (49 percent) instead of the right direction (43 percent). At the beginning of Walz’s first term in March 2019, 57 percent of Minnesotans believed the state was moving in the right direction. Widespread fraud is clearly influencing these “wrong track” numbers.

Beyond who to blame, the poll also tried to determine the specific factors Minnesotans believe were behind the fraud. Fifty percent of respondents believe people trying to exploit the system is the biggest contributor to fraud, followed by weak internal controls (33 percent), corruption and kickbacks (29 percent), and political favoritism shown to certain groups at 19 percent.

What to do about it?

Finally, we used the poll to gauge support for specific solutions to fraud in Minnesota state government. The proposal to establish an independent office of inspector general once again garnered wide support from Minnesotans with 72 percent approval, matching the support found in our last poll. Legislation to create this office passed the Minnesota Senate overwhelmingly but failed in the House because every Democratic member voted “No.” Watch for this issue to reappear during the 2026 legislative session.

Other solutions to fraud supported by Minnesotans include increasing penalties (89 percent), investing more in fraud detection tools (83 percent), tightening eligibility requirements for programs (63 percent), and freezing some spending on certain programs until fraud is addressed (60 percent). Fifty-four percent believe no funding increases or new programs should be established until stronger oversight is in place.

One final note — 88 percent believe people should be held accountable and, in some cases, fired for allowing widespread fraud in state government, an ominous number for those in charge of state government.