Harassment scandal roils governor, MN-8 races

Yesterday, MinnPost published a bombshell story by Sam Brodey about a top Rick Nolan staffer accused of harassing women who worked in Nolan’s office. Several women told Brodey that Nolan’s D.C. office legislative director Jim Swidirski harassed and groped them. Swidirski was allowed to resign quietly in 2015. Nolan then retained Swidirski as a campaign… Read More →

Calculating Minnesota’s 8th District DFL primary

As a hot, wet Northern Minnesota summer slogs into its dog days, so too does the DFL primary in the Eighth Congressional District. Less than a month away, the Aug. 14 primary election will send a new DFL nominee to face a well-financed Republican challenger backed vociferously by President Trump. That challenger, Pete Stauber of… Read More →

Boundless primary choices await Northern MN voters

Over the Fourth of July holiday political candidates marched in parades across Northern Minnesota. Each hoped to make valuable connections with voters during a tumultuous election cycle. But here on the Iron Range, this mushroomed into an ungainly number of candidates. This was particularly evident on the DFL side. With stacked primaries in Minnesota’s Eighth… Read More →

President Trump to hold Duluth rally June 20

President Trump will hold a June 20 rally in Duluth, Minn., to sell his policies and stump for Republican candidates. The rally will be held at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center at 6:30 p.m. June 20. Doors will open at 3:30 p.m. UPDATE: The rally has been moved to AMSOIL Arena in the DECC… Read More →

Activist Sorensen joins Minnesota 8th District race

Yesterday, Minnesota media reported on numerous tales of political intrigue as the state and federal candidate filing period closed. Here in the North, we learned that we’d have an unexpected Republican primary in the Eighth Congressional District, but we also got another candidate in the crowded DFL primary. Progressive activist Soren C. Sorensen of Bemidji… Read More →

Welty jumps in 8th District GOP race

Former Duluth School Board member Harry Welty jumped into the Eighth District race for Congress as a Republican Monday. Welty, who has run for office as a Republican and as an independent in the past, will compete with GOP-endorsed St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber for the Republican nomination. The Eighth District represents one of… Read More →

Money in politics is the ax, we are the wood

We stand miles of hard road from knowing who will be the next representative from Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District. Recent history predicts a tight race, both in the contested DFL primary and in the general election. We also know that it will be one of the most closely watched races in the country. Indeed, control… Read More →

New order unfolds in Minnesota’s 8th District

On Saturday, Republicans endorsed St. Louis County commissioner Pete Stauber for Congress in Minnesota’s Eighth District. Unlike the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s 10-ballot non-endorsement last month, Stauber won his blessing in a single-ballot coronation. Stauber does not expect to face a meaningful primary challenge. His DFL opponents, on the other hand, face a potentially bruising four-candidate contest… Read More →

Amid perennial politics, campaign workers unionize

My first experience with political campaigning came after I walked into the Democratic-Farmer-Labor campaign office in Virginia, Minnesota in 1996. I volunteered on the spot. My school just laid off some of my teachers. Further, I had no idea how my recently bankrupted family and I would be able to pay for college. Motivated, I… Read More →

Stewart Mills offers surprising analysis on mining

When Stewart Mills announced he would not make another run for Congress in Minnesota’s Eighth District this year, he offered decidedly sharp words for the Republican political establishment. Now it appears that Mills found a new occupation: blogger. Mills writes a new blog called Outstate, which reports on a blend of national and state political… Read More →