Press Release

After reports surfaced calling him out for claims that he drove nearly 56,000 miles, almost a quarter of the way to the moon, for campaign, Kistner suspiciously reduced mileage claims by 80% during the first quarter of the on-year.

MN-02 Republican candidate Tyler Kistner made headlines last year for paying himself $26,000 in campaign cash by claiming he drove 46,000 miles from January 2020 through July 2021. His claims of driving the “width of the United States more than 16 times” for campaign purposes roundly drew scrutiny, resulting in an FEC complaint and questions from ethics experts.

Then, his campaign finance report filed on January 31 revealed that Kistner gave himself another $5,400 in mileage reimbursements – equivalent to almost 10,000 miles – in the final months of 2021, bringing his total self-payments to nearly $32,000 of campaign cash going into Kistner’s personal pocket.

Now in his latest campaign filing, Kistner gave himself another campaign kickback, this time reimbursing himself for over $1,000. His dramatically scaled-back reimbursements of 10,000 miles per quarter down to just 2,500 — an 80% drop right as the campaign cycle heats up — signal he knows he’s in the hot seat.

“Tyler Kistner got caught red-handed and now in his latest fundraising report, he’s desperately trying to cover his tracks. There is only one way for Tyler Kistner to explain how he went from driving 10,000 miles a quarter to 2,500 — as campaign season entered full swing — and that’s to release his travel logs,” said DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin. “Kistner’s bogus mileage reimbursements still don’t add up and it’s far past time for Kistner to come clean to Minnesotans about whether or not he’s fraudulently pocketed tens of thousands of dollars from his campaign.”