A wealthy California tech investor funneled $5.07 million into ads opposing dozens of DFL candidates across Minnesota's House and Senate this fall, a spending blitz state regulators describe as unlike anything they have seen in a legislative race. Scott Banister, an early investor in PayPal, SpaceX and Uber, began spending through an entity called First Amendment LLC on September 21, pouring money into digital, mail and phone ads aimed at 57 races in the final stretch before Election Day.
The scale of the spending caught the attention of Jeff Sigurdson, director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, who has overseen the agency since 2000. According to MinnPost, Sigurdson called the individual spending unprecedented, and said outside spending by a single individual is rare enough that the board's website has no designated section for it. He recalled that the largest prior example of an outside individual expenditure he could remember amounted to just $2,000 to $3,000.
Banister's filing arrived in an unusual way, too. The board requires expenditure reports covering spending through September 15 to be filed by September 22, but the next deadline for outside spending wasn't until October 26 — and Banister's filing came in on paper that day, per MinnPost's report. Because the board treated the filing as committee spending rather than individual spending, it was reported in the committee section of the board's site. Sigurdson said the board made that call specifically to avoid delaying publication, since treating it otherwise risked a roughly $5 million undercount of public outside-spending disclosures before Election Day.
Suburban House and Senate Races Become Spending Flashpoints
Nowhere did the money land harder than in House District 34A, where Banister spent $229,275 on attack ads against DFL candidate Jason Heaser, who is challenging Republican Rep. Danny Nadeau, according to Heartland Signal. That single expenditure turned the suburban district, which Nadeau represents along with Rogers, Champlin and Dayton, into the state's highest-spending House race. Board data cited by MinnPost showed Banister's expenditures represented the largest share of outside spending in many of the 57 races, and in some, all of it.
Heaser told MinnPost the outsized influence of one donor highlights a broader problem with money in politics. “They are using their money to try to influence elections that don't directly impact them, and I think that's wrong,” he said. Nadeau, for his part, said negative ads and outside spending felt more pronounced this cycle, and urged voters to focus on candidates' messaging and positions rather than the spenders behind the ads. “It sure takes away from candidates being able to get their message out when everyone gets really tired of seeing these ads and mailers,” Nadeau said. Another outside group, the MN Family Prosperity Project, spent $107,799 against Nadeau in the same race.
Lakeville and St. Cloud Also Saw Six-Figure Sums
In Senate District 57, covering Lakeville, Banister spent $195,487 against DFL challenger Steven Schroer — a sum that equaled 98% of all outside spending in that race, the outlet's report found. By comparison, Empower Minnesota spent just $1,875 against Republican incumbent Sen. Zach Duckworth in the same district. Banister also put $132,042 into the St. Cloud Senate District 14 race, though that amount wasn't likely a game-changer in a contest that topped $3.5 million in total outside spending, according to a separate MinnPost report on outside money in suburban and Greater Minnesota races.
Make Liberty Win, a vendor based in Fairfax, Virginia, is listed on Banister's filing, and MinnPost reported it sought comment from both Banister and the vendor. Banister has a reported home in Half Moon Bay, California, and the outlet noted he was reportedly behind $40 million in dark money directed against Democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and other battleground states.
Part of a Broader Flood of Outside Cash
Banister's spending is a slice of a much larger wave of outside money moving through Minnesota politics this year. Nine Minnesota Senate races drew more than $1 million each in independent expenditures in 2026, MinnPost has reported separately. Campaign finance reports through October 19 showed more than $55 million flowing into the governor and attorney general races alone, with outside groups outspending the candidates' own campaigns, according to MPR News, which cautioned that even those totals didn't capture the full financial picture. MPR News also reported that outside groups spent more than $8 million combined in three Senate races targeting DFL incumbents Grant Hauschild, Aric Putnam and Rob Kupec, with spending against Putnam alone topping $3 million.
Renew Minnesota, a Republican-aligned independent expenditure group, had spent more than $9 million this year and was pouring money into battleground Senate races, according to the Minnesota Reformer. The trend isn't new: outside groups, including party and political action committees, spent more than $17 million on Minnesota legislative campaigns during the 2024 cycle, the Reformer reported in earlier coverage. The Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board itself has existed since 1974, overseeing disclosure rules that, under Minnesota Statutes section 10A.20, require reports to separately list independent expenditures made on behalf of local candidates, according to the Minnesota Revisor of Statutes.
Minnesota Not the Only Target
Minnesota isn't the only statehouse battleground where First Amendment LLC has shown up. The group reported spending $4 million on direct mail, phone calls and digital ads opposing Democratic candidates in 20 Pennsylvania House races and six Senate races, according to Spotlight PA. The Minnesota DFL has separately alleged on its website that First Amendment LLC had not registered with the Campaign Finance Board as of October 20, despite spending the party says crossed the registration threshold, and that the group's material explicitly advocated for the defeat of DFL candidates for the state House and Senate.
