Minnesota's attorney general race was running close early Wednesday between Democratic incumbent Keith Ellison and Republican challenger Jim Schultz, a political newcomer who tries to blame Ellison for rising crime.

Schultz, a 37-year-old hedge fund attorney with no courtroom experience, was seeking to become the first Republican to win Minnesota's attorney general race since 1966.

Ellison, who burst on the national scene as the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006, left that safe seat behind for his first run as attorney general in 2018, saying it was his best chance to push back against the policies of Donald Trump. Ellison just squeaked into office, and his progressive policies have made him a polarizing figure in the eyes of some voters.

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Ellison led the prosecution team that won a conviction of former police Officer Derek Chauvin in George Floyd's killing, and obtained guilty pleas from other officers. He also stepped in to prosecute a suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a Black motorist, Daunte Wright, in the midst of Chauvin's trial. Ellison said his office had successfully prosecuted 50 serious crimes, and contrasted that with Schultz's lack of courtroom experience.

Schultz made crime his top issue. He accused Ellison of being at the forefront of the "defund the police" movement that arose from Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, and he promised to shift the office’s attorneys away from their traditional duties of consumer and labor protection into a major expansion of the criminal division. He also accused Ellison of doing too little to stop a massive scheme that federal prosecutors say stole at least $250 million from a program to feed children during the pandemic.

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Ellison supported a failed Minneapolis ballot measure in 2020 that would have replaced the city’s police department with a vaguely defined public safety department. But he maintained that he never supported defunding police, just reforming law enforcement. And he accused Schultz of misstating the role of the attorney general’s office in fighting violent crime, pointing out that it can only take over a criminal case at the request of the local county attorney or the governor.

After the Supreme Court overturned the Roe legal precedent that guaranteed a national right to abortion, Ellison made the issue central to his campaign. He vowed to use his office to defend abortion rights, and reminded voters that Schultz had vowed to go on "offense, offense, offense" against abortion when he was trying to win the GOP nomination.

Schultz tried to avoid talking about abortion.

"I’m pro-life and I’m not ashamed of that," he said, but accused Ellison of using the issue as a distraction.

A former student at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin, who set a fire in a residence hall and claimed it was a hate crime against her, has had her single misdemeanor charge dismissed.

Victoria Unanka, who is black, was initially arrested and charged with arson as well as a misdemeanor count of negligent handling of burning materials, but La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke dropped the arson charge in June 2021, saying he didn’t think it applied. On October 28, 2022, the misdemeanor charge was dismissed following the prosecution’s motion regarding a diversion agreement, WXOW reported.

Unanka, in November 2021, pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor, which carried a maximum penalty of nine months in prison or a $10,000 fine, or both.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, Unanka reportedly texted a friend on the night of April 18, 2021, to say that a small fire that began in her residence hall must have been targeted at her because it started next to her room. Unanka had previously claimed to be the victim of a hate crime as well, and even after she was arrested for the fire, Viterbo president Glena Temple said that the university was still investigating Unanka’s earlier claims of victimhood.

“This is a complex situation that involves a series of concerning incidents,” Temple said, according to the La Crosse Tribune. “We continue to investigate the incidents earlier in the semester and any potential link between them and this fire.”

The La Crosse Fire Department arrived on campus around 2:30 a.m. on April 18, where a fire had been reported at Marian Hall in the second-floor lounge. The fire was easily put out with a fire extinguisher, though the fire department said there was a “fair amount” of smoke damage and that ventilation was required. The department also reported minor damage to a wall and a bit of carpet. The fire was small enough not to trigger the sprinkler system.

Unanka allegedly told police she had been with her friends the night of the fire and returned home around midnight, at which time she made some food and went to the lounge to wash her hands. She said she didn’t go anywhere else in the residence hall before returning to her room. She also told police she didn’t see anything suspicious prior to the fire. Once the alarm went off, she said she and a friend knocked on doors to get other students out of the building.

When police reviewed security footage of the residence hall, however, they noticed inconsistencies in Unanka’s claims. Surveillance footage showed Unanka left her room at about 2:09 a.m. and began checking to see if other people were present. In the next five minutes, Unanaka goes into the lounge area and a bathroom before returning to her room. At 2:14 a.m., smoke could be seen on the camera footage. Unanka then began knocking on residents’ doors and pulled the fire alarm herself.

It was a resident adviser who told police that Unanka texted a friend to say the fire was yet another hate crime against her.

When police noted the inconsistencies between Unanka’s version of events and the security footage, she changed her story and admitted she intended to set the fire. She claimed she quickly decided against the fire and went back to the lounge after she went to the bathroom and attempted to clean up the smoking remnants of old food on the stove. She said the paper towels she used caught fire, and she shook them out to try to extinguish the flames. She then tossed them in the garbage can.

She told police she was frustrated that “no one was listening to me anymore,” purportedly about her other claims of being the victim of racist incidents.

Unanka left campus shortly after the fire incident.