Early estimates put public property damage in Minnesota from flooding at $32 million, and that's without all of the damaged counties reporting.

No fewer than half a dozen major players have emerged among the ranks of pro-Republican business PACs in this election cycle. But while their 42-day pre-general election campaign finance reports are now available for all to see, they continue to play it close with respect to their big-picture plans.

Leaders and activists in the Republican Party of Minnesota haven’t had much time to think about elections lately. In a whirlwind series of events, the party lost its chairman, deputy chairman and secretary/treasurer in the span of three months amid mounting questions about the party’s finances.

Jeff Larson, an influential national Republican strategist based in St. Paul, has sold off his stake in the GOP fundraising and consulting firm FLS Connect. But the decision to walk away from the company that he founded more than a decade ago doesn't mean that Larson is stepping back from electoral politics.

MN Forward had bold plans for the 2010 campaign season. Last spring the business-backed political group, a venture jointly launched by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Business Partnership, laid out a fundraising goal of $10 million to bankroll its initial foray into electoral politics, according to a planning document obtained by Capitol Report.

Minnesota's Future, the independent political organization connected to prominent GOP consultant Jeff Larson, has raised $430,391 since the primary election. Practically all of that money came from one source: a $429,000 contribution from the Republican Governor's Association.

As of the July 19 pre-primary filing deadline, Minnesota's Future had just over $800 in its bank account. Its only expenditures this year were $10 for postage and $4.81 for Caribou Coffee.

Jeff Larson, one of the country's leading Republican consultants, has created a new independent political expenditure group called Minnesota's Future. The Associated Press reports that Larson has registered the organization with the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt 527 organization to support "pro-business candidates" in the state.

Following our story yesterday about FLS Connect, the powers-that-be at the company’s call center in Phoenix assembled the troops late Wednesday and allegedly told them to steer clear of the media.

An Arizona man who spent 10 months working as a telephone solicitor for a Minnesota-based Republican fundraising firm claims that the company regularly hires convicted felons who have unrestricted access to political donors' credit card numbers.