Minnesota state Rep. Tom Emmer, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor, is now being attacked in a new third-party ad over his recent advocacy of a policy known as a “tip credit” that would keep waiters’ wages low — a flap that was best exemplified by his public complaint that some of them were supposedly making over $100,000 per year.
“Why is Tom Emmer so worried that the lowest paid workers are making too much?” says one woman in the new ad from the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a liberal organization affiliated with labor and environmental groups. Another woman also adds: “I do not think Tom Emmer personally cares about working Minnesotans.”
Emmer has publicly backtracked from his claim that waiters were making over $100,000 and that “Something has to be done about that.” He has also attempted to control the damage by waiting tables for a photo-op, proposing that tips be made tax-free, and holding a town hall meeting with servers that did not go well.
The ad has a buy of over $300,000, and is running for one week. A new Rasmussen poll out this morning shows Emmer trailing the three Democratic candidates. The TPM Poll Average also shows the Dems narrowly ahead.