Why is no DFLer challenging Rep. Brad Finstad yet?

Feb. 21—ROCHESTER — GOP Rep. Brad Finstad is increasingly looking impregnable from his congressional perch representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.

Eight months before the general election in November, no DFL candidate has stepped forward to challenge the first-term GOP congressman. And time is running out. With each passing day, Finstad’s position looks increasingly unassailable.

For decades, the southern Minnesota district was a reliable swing district represented almost evenly between moderate DFLers and GOP conservatives.

Current

DFL Gov. Tim Walz represented the district for a dozen years from 2007 to 2019

before making his successful bid for governor.

Tim Penny, a DFLer, also held the seat for 12 years,

from 1982 to 1994. Gil Gutknecht, a GOP conservative, held sway between the Penny and Walz tenures and

held the seat for 12 years from 1995 to 2007.

The

late Jim Hagedorn, a Republican, held the seat for three years

from 2019 to 2022 before dying in office. He was

succeeded by Finstad in both special and general elections

in 2022.

But within the latest several election cycles, the district has shifted in the GOP’s favor in what is largely a rural district in farm country. One sign of how the prevailing winds have moved rightward is that not a single DFL candidate for statewide office — from governor and secretary of state to auditor and attorney general — won in the 1st district in 2022, according to data from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website.

“You have to look at the geographical contours of the First District. It stretches far, far west, and it didn’t used to do that. And those counties are deep red counties. And that help makes Finstad a pretty comfortable incumbent,” said Steven Schier, a Minnesota political analyst.

DFL Chairman Ken Martin, in an interview with the Post Bulletin, said Finstad was “definitely vulnerable” in a year “where we will see increased turnout on the Democratic side” in a presidential year. Martin said there have been ongoing conversations with potential candidates with political experience who are considering running against Finstad. But he didn’t disclose any names.

But time is not on DFL’s side.

“If I’m being honest, as each day and week passes, the likelihood of them pulling the trigger and getting in is less and less,” Martin said. “Look, it’s a priority for me. It’s a priority for the national party to contest every race, and that includes in the First District.”

Any DFL candidate willing to challenge Finstad wouldn’t be able to count on much help from outside groups to raise campaign funds. It would take $1 million to $3 million to run a serious race, and much of that money would have to be raised by the DFL candidate on their own without much help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The committee supports congressional Democratic candidates in races where it believes it can influence or affect the outcome in close races, and the DCCC hasn’t been an influential factor in 1st district contests since after 2020.

Polarization has also taken a toll on the moderate Democrat, which is increasingly disappearing from the Minnesota political scene. Both Walz and Penny ran as unabashed 2nd Amendment supporters. The greater uniformity in the DFL party was on display in the 2023 legislative session in St. Paul, where the party passed legislation despite a narrow-majority by voting en bloc.

“They were uniform and progressive. And the agenda was a Twin Cities progressive agenda,” Schier said. “And you didn’t see any significant dissent. You had party line votes on narrow margins. And that shows you that the more centrist or conservative Democrat outstate is not much of a force in the party anymore.”

Finstad, a former state legislator and USDA rural development director, also boasts advantages that his predecessor, Hagedorn, didn’t have. While Finstad’s votes so far aren’t probably all that different from how Hagedorn would have voted had he lived, Finstad doesn’t have Hagedorn’s baggage, his scandals and abrasiveness.

Conventional wisdom also holds that an incumbent, no matter the party, tends to be at their most vulnerable in their first election after winning a full term. But that isn’t always the case.

Hagedorn improved on his margin of victory from 2018 to 2020 because of then-President Trump’s ability to galvanize and turnout people who didn’t regularly vote. Walz also did much better in first re-election effort, thanks to a Democratic wave election powered by Barack Obama and a weak opponent.

“Rochester and Austin are sort of blue islands in a red sea,” Schier said.