WASHINGTON — An election in November that will cap a tumultuous campaign season is expected to bring about change with the possibility of Democrats wresting control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate from the GOP.
In Minnesota, voters could very well send most of the same people to represent them in the House and the makeup of its congressional delegation could continue to be evenly split, with four Democrats and four Republicans headed to Washington, D.C., next year.
And that is because of the power of incumbency, which creates an uneven playing field for challengers.
In the last three elections, the average reelection rate for a member of Congress was 96%, which grew to about 98% in 2024.
David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University, said there are plenty of reasons it’s so difficult to oust an incumbent.
One is name recognition, especially since incumbents receive plenty of media attention.
And sitting members of Congress “can use their power to do real cool things” Schultz said, including procuring money for earmarks, or local projects, and sponsoring legislation that benefits their district.
Schultz also said incumbents have a much greater ability to connect with donors who prefer to give political cash to those already in office. And political action committees (PACs) that represent industry or other special interests routinely give to lawmakers on committees with authority over them.
And incumbents have other benefits.
Related: How a rematch in an east metro district could determine control of the Minnesota Senate
“Generally, the main asset incumbents bring to the table are resources. They have preexisting fundraising networks, and super PACs and party committees have a stronger incentive to spend for an incumbent rather than a challenger candidate,” said Erin Covey of the Cook Political Report.
Even lawmakers who face no challengers or weak challengers continue to amass campaign cash “to scare (potential challengers) away,” Schultz said.
“There are many candidates who have decent credentials and have thought through the issues,” Schultz said. “But their chances of winning are low.”
The biggest obstacle facing challengers may be the makeup of Minnesota’s congressional districts. Four are solidly Republican, favoring President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and four are home to a majority of Democratic voters and favored Kamala Harris.
Although the U.S. Census mandates a redrawing of congressional districts every 10 years, those efforts — usually handled by the state Supreme Court in Minnesota — have resulted in minimal change.
“And that minimalism tends to favor the incumbent,” Schultz said.
There’s one open seat in the state — the 2nd District seat Democratic Rep. Angie Craig is vacating. The Democratic candidate in that race is former Lakeville Mayor Matt Little and the Republican is state Sen. Eric Pratt.
Open seats are usually more competitive than races between incumbents and challengers.
The Cook Political Report’s latest ranking of the district is “likely Democratic.” That’s a downgrade from the “solid Democratic” rating it had when Craig was the candidate for the seat.
The Challengers
- 1st District: Jake Johnson, Democrat
- Running against: Rep. Brad Finstad, Republican
- 2024 Election: Trump won district 55% to 44%
- Campaign money raised by Johnson as of 7/22: $2 million
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Likely Republican”
Jake Johnson has had a few advantages over other challengers running for Congress in Minnesota.
A high school math teacher, Johnson, 42, has raised as much campaign cash as Rep. Brad Finstad, allowing him to fund two TV ads already, and has adopted a centrist stance in that conservative-leaning district.
Johnson, who entered the race in the spring of last year, quickly began hammering Finstad for the Republican’s support of President Trump’s tariffs, which has resulted in higher costs for the district’s farmers and other constituents.
Johnson has also campaigned on his hardscrabble upbringing in Stewartville as part of a blended family with 11 kids.
“I was a SNAP (food stamp) kid,” he said. “We were a Medicaid family.”
The Democrat has another advantage.
Related: Democrat Jake Johnson, a teacher, tries to solve the difficult math in a red district
Mindful of his campaigning skills — which include holding town halls in each of the district’s 21 counties — and especially his fundraising skills, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has placed Johnson on its “Red to Blue” list.
Those on the list are Democrats trying to flip a Republican-held seat who are considered worthy enough of the national Democratic Party’s help. The “Red to Blue” designation gives candidates access to fundraising support, strategic guidance and training.
Despite his strengths, Johnson faces an incumbent who did better than Trump in the district in 2024. Finstad won 58% of the vote against his Democratic incumbent that year.
- 3rd District: Tyler Bass, Republican
- Running against: Rep. Kelly Morrison, Democrat
- 2024 Election: Harris won district 60% to 38%
- Campaign money raised by Bass as of 7/22: None reported.
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Solid Democratic”
Like many challengers, Bass is a novice to the campaign trail, having not run for political office before and running as an outsider.
A small businessman who lives in Blooming Prairie, Bass, 29, defeated a more mainstream Republican, Quentin Wittrock, to win the party’s endorsement.
But Bass’ strong conservatism may make it difficult for him to appeal to voters among the district’s Democratic majority and its independents with conservative views that include hardline stances on immigration.
Bass is also far behind Rep. Kelly Morrison when it comes to campaign cash. The lawmaker has raised about $1.4 million to defend the seat.
The 3rd District wraps around the western side of the Twin Cities and includes cities like Anoka and Coon Rapids to the north, many small towns around Lake Minnetonka such as Deephaven and Excelsior and cities further south including Eden Prairie and parts of Edina.
Related: Maple Grove is growing. Is it also turning blue?
- 4th District: Paul Wikstrom, Republican
- Running against: Rep. Betty McCollum, Democrat
- 2024 Election: Harris won district 66% to 31%
- Campaign money raised by Wikstrom as of 7/22: $28,000
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Solid Democratic”
One reason Paul Wikstrom, an engineer with an aerospace firm, decided to run against Rep. Betty McCollum is that he successfully challenged the victory of a DFL candidate for a Roseville and Shoreview-area state House seat in 2024.
Wikstrom, who was also running for that seat, was able to prove that his DFL challenger did not live in that House district, which nullified his electoral win. Wikstrom lost a subsequent special election for that seat, but by then he was bitten by the political bug.
Like many Republicans running for all types of office in Minnesota this year, Wikstrom, 64, is raising the issue of fraud in social service programs in the state, which Rep. Betty McCollum, as a federal lawmaker, had no direct control of.
Even so, Wikstrom said the “realization that we have so much fraud in the state,” coupled with his success at ousting a DFL candidate for the state House, made him realize he was destined for Congress.
“I’m called to do this,” he said of his campaign.
Yet Wikstrom is running in a St. Paul-based district that is one of the “bluest” in the state.
He’s undaunted.
He said he had “a strong Republican base” in the GOP primary and that he also appeals to unaffiliated voters.
“I think we’re going to get strong support in the middle,” Wikstrom said.
Besides decrying fraud, Wikstrom is campaigning on public safety, affordability and the need to shrink the national debt.
He has a shoestring campaign, however, having raised only about $28,000 in political cash as of June 30. McCollum, a progressive who has represented the district for 25 years and is the dean of Minnesota’s congressional delegation, has raised about $1.25 million for her reelection.
- 5th District: John Nagel, Republican
- Running against: Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat
- 2024 Election: Harris won district 79% to 18%
- Campaign money raised by Nagel as of 7/22: $747,000
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Solid Democratic”
A retired state patrolman, Nagel first considered running for political office after he ran a local GOP caucus.
“The next thing you know, I was asked to run for the state House,” Nagel said.
But he was hesitant to run against state Rep. Larry Kraft. “I was not really driven to put my name on a ballot,” Nagel said.
But the realization that Rep. Ilhan Omar would run unopposed unless someone like him stepped up changed Nagel’s mind about jumping into politics, even as he realizes he’d be running in “probably the ‘bluest’ district in the country.”
Related: Omar responds to Trump, GOP charges of financial malfeasance and fraud with new financial disclosure filing
“I’m not going to say this is easy,” Nagel said. “But people who live here want a competitive race. “
Nagel is running an anti-fraud, anti-violent crime campaign.
“I am running because people in the district deserve to be safe,” he said
Nagel is also trying to garner support among Minneapolis voters who feel they are not represented by Omar, a leader of the House Progressive Caucus.
Omar is a lightning rod for many conservatives, which has likely helped Nagel in his fundraising.
Like other long-shot challengers in the state, the Republican is optimistic.
“They told George Washington he would not win against the British,” Nagel said. “So, I have some faith.”
- 6th District: Doug Chapin, Democrat
- Running against: Rep. Tom Emmer, Republican
- 2024 Election: Trump won district 57.7% to 40.1%
- Campaign money raised by Chapin as of 7/22: $439,000
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Solid Republican”
Doug Chapin, a retired professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and an expert on election law, is politically savvy but says he never planned to become a politician.
Chapin, 62, said that changed after President Trump pardoned those charged with offenses stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
“I told people for years that I was an election geek and not a politician,” he said. “But that turned me into one.”
He’s hoping to be a giant-killer in defeating Rep. Tom Emmer, who as House Majority Whip is a member of the GOP congressional leadership and has raised millions of dollars in campaign cash.
Chapin accuses Emmer, who strongly backs the president, of being a “rubber stamp” for Trump and wants to belong to a Congress that is willing to put guardrails on the White House.
Chapin, who lives in Hanover, thinks the district, which includes the Twin City’s outer northern and western suburbs, “is far less Republican than the election results would lead you to believe.”
He said the district has had rapid growth that is changing it politically.
“We believe the ‘blue bleed’ is pretty strong,” Chapin said.
The reason Republicans have had control of the district since 2003?
“The DFL hasn’t run anyone who could actually win it,” Chapin said.
- 7th District: Erik Osberg, Democrat
- Running against: Rep. Michelle Fischbach, Republican
- 2024 Election: Trump won district 67% to 31%
- Campaign money raised by Chapin as of 7/22: $335,000
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Solid Republican”
Erik Osberg, who lives in Wadena, is running on a common Democratic theme: affordability and the struggles of the working class in an economy where prices continue to climb.
He is also campaigning on the need to strengthen rural health care and public schools and said the first thing he would do in Congress is work to repeal Trump’s signature “big beautiful bill,” which extended tax cuts he said favored billionaires and cut Medicaid and other social programs.
A former sports reporter who “transitioned” into the financial services industry, Osberg has taken on Rep. Michelle Fischbach in one of the “reddest” areas in Minnesota. The 7th District covers 38 largely rural counties in western Minnesota.
Osberg is a realist and at Farmfest earlier this summer said his campaign has an “even if” mentality. As in, even if the odds are stacked against him, he’s showing up and listening to as many district residents as possible.
He also compared himself to Rocky Balboa, the fictional Philadelphia pugilist in a film whose popularity spawned a rash of sequels.
“We’re Rocky in this fight, I get that,” Osberg said. “And Rocky didn’t win, right? But Rocky went the distance.”
He said the story of the fighter inspired people. He said he hopes that’s the effect his campaign is having on people.
- 8th District: Trina Swanson, Democrat
- Running against: Rep. Pete Stauber, Republican
- 2024 Election: Trump won district 56% to 42%
- Campaign money raised by Swanson as of 7/22: $316,000
- District’s Cook Political Report rating: “Solid Republican”
Although it has rated this district “Solid Republican,” the Cook Political Report says “if a blue wave materializes in 2026, a strong Democratic candidate could force Republicans to play some defense in this district.”
Trina Swanson, 45, hopes she is that candidate.
A former federal employee, Swanson said she quit the agency she had worked for for 20 years — U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) — because after Trump was reelected she was pressured “to do things I thought were unethical.”
One of those things was a mandate on not putting any guidance on interviews she conducted with refugees seeking to live in the United States. Another, Swanson said, was that she was asked to issue a visa for the spouse of a nanny who worked for a high-ranking official at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
She believes the sprawling northern, Iron Range-based district has been represented by Democrats before and is not out of reach. In fact, Rep. Pete Stauber won the district from a Democratic incumbent, Rick Nolan, in 2018.
Swanson said “culture wars” are the reason the 8th District turned to the GOP. But she said “kitchen table” issues, including “affordability” and the need for universal health care, will turn that tide this year,
She’s become embroiled in the fight over a proposed data center in Hermantown, where tempers flared over the issue at a recent City Council meeting.
Swanson said she would back federal legislation to regulate data centers and artificial intelligence, which has created a need for them.
She said the decision to site a data center is “a community decision.” But she opposes allowing elected officials to enter into nondisclosure agreements with Google or any other tech companies seeking to construct data centers and opposes offering tax breaks to those companies.
Swanson and Stauber both live in Hermantown, a town wrestling with an issue that has angered both Democrats and Republicans.
“Congressman Stauber believes local communities must have input in deciding whether a data center is built in their area, and he encourages his constituents to make their voices heard on this issue,” said Stauber spokeswoman Kelsey Emmer.
She also said that Stauber believes that if a data center opens in a community, residents should not face utility rate hikes as a result.
“The data center must fully cover its own water and energy costs so that local communities are not burdened with higher utility rates,” Emmer said.
Greater Minnesota reporter Brian Arola contributed to this story.
The post The Challengers: Why it will be hard, in a midterm likely to herald change, to oust a congressional incumbent in Minnesota appeared first on MinnPost.
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