Billionaire Glen Taylor’s right-hand man is a political player supporting Lisa Demuth for governor

House Speaker Lisa Demuth won the Republican primary for governor despite losing the Minnesota Republican Party’s convention endorsement — a first since 1994. Now she’s putting up a credible challenge against the state’s most accomplished vote-getter, Democratic nominee Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

She’s had help from an outfit called Restore Sanity, which has provided the most significant outside money to a statewide Republican candidate in years.

A key player in this effort is Tommy Merickel, an influential, behind-the-scenes business executive and fundraiser. What’s most notable about him is his boss. Merickel is an executive at Taylor Corp. — a North Mankato-headquartered conglomerate founded by the richest Minnesotan and owner of the Minnesota Star Tribune: billionaire Glen Taylor.

Back in January, during a wide-open Republican nominating contest, Merickel sent an email — from a Taylor Corp. email address and obtained by the Reformer — to “Business Community Allies” encouraging them to support Demuth’s run for governor.

“I have been fortunate in my 40+ year career to work alongside many successful leaders in government, politics, and business. I have worked in the U.S. Senate, the Minnesota State Senate, and the Minnesota Republican Party; managed several statewide and local political campaigns; and spent more than 37 years working with my friend and mentor, Glen Taylor, in his businesses. Those experiences have shaped my understanding of what it takes to win,” Merickel wrote.

“I already have commitments from investors to begin. I am asking whether you would consider an investment to Restore Sanity PAC. Restoring Sanity is needed in Minnesota!”

Merickel is known in the business community and in political circles as Taylor’s right-hand man, with a history that goes back to 1985. Taylor served as Republican minority leader in the Minnesota Senate representing the Mankato area, and Merickel was his chief of staff.

That close relationship and Merickel’s fundraising raise questions about whether the owner of the state’s most influential media property is a silent partner in the effort to elect Demuth as the state’s first female governor.

In an interview with the Reformer, Merickel said he has raised money for the Restore Sanity political action committee in his personal capacity, consistent with his years of raising money and donating to political candidates, groups and causes. Merickel served as a director of the Minnesota Jobs Coalition from 2015 to 2018. The group was created after the Republicans’ 2012 debacle that gave Democrats their first trifecta in recent memory. Republicans in 2012 were broke, and voters rejected constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and require photo ID for voting — resulting from a well-coordinated effort from outside groups to defeat the amendments and drive voter turnout.

The Jobs Coalition, which is still hammering Democrats today, went on to help Republicans take the House majority in 2014 and then expand it in 2016.

Merickel said he hasn’t spoken to Taylor about supporting Demuth’s candidacy, but noted Taylor is “a business guy in Minnesota,” seeming to imply that Taylor likely is backing Demuth, even if not financially.

Taylor is aware of the fundraising Merickel’s doing for the PAC, Merickel said; Taylor was also a recipient of the fundraising appeal. Merickel said Taylor has no involvement in the PAC and didn’t help start it. Merickel was unsure how much money he has raised for Restore Sanity because he doesn’t have access to its books.

Although the email address from which Merickel sent the email ends in “@taylor.com,” he said it’s the address he uses for personal matters.

Bulk mailers with ties to Taylor

Since the beginning of the year, Restore Sanity has raised over $4 million in donations — the majority from Wisconsin billionaire Richard Uihlein. All of its expenditures have been on advertisements and mailers in support of Demuth’s gubernatorial campaign, according to campaign finance reports.

The independent expenditure committee has run several ads in support of Demuth’s campaign and has sent out direct mailers highlighting her priorities: eliminating fraud in Minnesota’s social safety net programs, stopping illegal immigration and prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in girls’ sports.

Demuth’s campaign for governor did not respond to a request for comment about Restore Sanity. Demuth was asked about the outside spending earlier this month during a WCCO interview.

“There cannot be any coordination between an outside group and a candidate, so there is no coordination whatsoever,” Demuth said, noting that Klobuchar’s previous campaigns — including her presidential run — were bankrolled by billionaires.

Demuth’s campaign has been bolstered by the millions in outside spending, but the campaign itself has been strapped for cash. In the latest campaign finance report, Demuth’s campaign had about $450,000 in cash. In comparison, Klobuchar’s campaign reported nearly $4.5 million in cash.

Another link between Taylor Corp. and Demuth’s gubernatorial campaign is a permit from the U.S. Postal Service.

The Postal Service allows anyone to acquire a mailing permit to pay for the cost of sending out commercial mail in bulk, in lieu of a traditional postage stamp. The mailers will display a permit number and the location where the permit was registered.

At least one of Restore Sanity’s mailers issued in the past several months showed its mailing permit was owned by Taylor Corp., according to people who had knowledge of the permit’s ownership but were unauthorized by their employer to speak publicly. Taylor Corp., which has a significant printing business, doesn’t appear on Restore Sanity’s financial expenditure reports, however.

Merickel repeatedly emphasized to the Reformer that Restore Sanity is not a Taylor Corp. printing customer. When informed that the Reformer was able to confirm it owned a permit that appears on a Restore Sanity mailer, Merickel couldn’t explain why.

Asked about the business’s mailing permit appearing on a Restore Sanity mailer, a Taylor Corp. spokesperson in a statement said it produces “a variety of political related mail pieces” on behalf of various organizations.

“These organizations provide services to the full spectrum of candidates, supporting organizations and political affiliations across the country. Taylor Corp. has not and will not make any donations to either political candidates individually or to any organization established to support political candidates,” a spokesperson said. “Neither Glen Taylor nor Taylor Corp. drive to influence the political coverage of the Minnesota Star Tribune. That is the job of their independent newsroom.”

The Taylor Corp. spokesperson said Taylor himself contributed to the statement when the Reformer asked whether the billionaire would like to comment.

The newspaper echoed Taylor Corp.’s sentiment in a statement to the Reformer: “Neither Glen nor the Taylor Corp. influence the political coverage of the Minnesota Star Tribune.”

A person with knowledge of the Taylor-Merickel relationship — who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about people in his social circles — said the two are very close, and he said he couldn’t remember a Merickel statewide campaign effort that didn’t have Taylor’s support.

“Everybody in Republican circles and in business circles thinks Tommy speaks with Glen’s voice,” the person said. “He doesn’t ever have to invoke Glen’s name because everyone just knows if Tommy’s there, Glen Taylor’s probably very close behind.”

Transparency in media

University of Minnesota professor Christopher Terry, who specializes in media law and political advertising, said newspaper owners aren’t obligated to disclose their political entanglements.

Taylor doesn’t appear to be doing anything wrong, Terry said, and he hasn’t detected any change in how the Star Tribune covers politics. Republicans criticized the paper’s coverage as liberal-leaning even before Taylor purchased it in 2014 and still do, frequently pointing to CEO Steve Grove, who worked in the administration of DFL Gov. Tim Walz.

“I’m a big transparency advocate so I would like it if the Star Tribune owned that,” Terry said. “But unless (Taylor) is doing something directly to influence the campaign and doing so in an underhanded fashion, there’s really nothing wrong with what he’s doing.”

The recent trend of billionaire owners of newspapers was first met with optimism, given the resources they could commit and business expertise they supposedly brought to the operation. Readers and journalists alike at The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have been disheartened, however, by their owners’ recent moves to assuage President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.

While announcing company-wide and newsroom layoffs some months ago, the Star Tribune also said it would continue exploring a nonprofit ownership structure. At the same time, however, the right-leaning nonprofit Alpha News reported it was in talks “with the ownership of the Star Tribune related to Alpha News’ purchase of the paper.”

Citing an unnamed source, the Star Tribune reported that once Taylor learned the potential buyer was Alpha News, “he squashed discussions.”

Outside money for Democrats

As Merickel pointed out, his efforts for Demuth — no matter how successful — would still pale in comparison to the big money that wealthy Democrats have employed since about 2010, funding a relentless political machine that has helped deliver a 20-year Democratic winning streak in Minnesota’s statewide races.

In the last midterm election cycle in 2022, Alliance for a Better Minnesota raised nearly $16 million and spent nearly $14 million of it on ads against the Republican candidate for governor.

The group’s biggest backer is Alida Messinger, a Rockefeller heiress and ex-wife of former Gov. Mark Dayton.

Merickel emphasized that Democrats in Minnesota are backed by millions in outside spending and noted Republicans are repeatedly outspent.

“Is there hypocrisy in any story talking about Restore (Sanity) compared to the Democrats? You know what the story is? Republicans haven’t had something like this,” Merickel said.

Merickel also said his political giving is just part of his philanthropy, which includes helping communities like Otter Tail County, where he lives and helped fundraise for a new project to bolster childcare availability in the rural area.

“To make this sound like all I do this for is for a political entity to raise money is sort of offensive to me,” Merickel said, “because you don’t know me at all.”