Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol Building on December 14, 2021 in Washington, DC. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.
U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, an east and south metro Democrat, won a commanding victory over Joe Teirab Tuesday, winning a fourth term with ease after a series of narrow victories since 2018.
Minnesota’s congressional delegation will likely remain unchanged for the next two years, with two Democratic senators, four Democrats and four Republicans in the U.S. House.
DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar comfortably won another six-year term.
These Minnesota incumbents in the U.S. House also won: Democratic Reps. Angie Craig of the east metro 2nd District and Ilhan Omar of the Minneapolis 5th. Republican incumbents also won: Reps. Brad Finstad in the 1st District, which sweeps the entirety of the southern border from east to west; Tom Emmer of the central Minnesota 6th District; Pete Stauber of the 8th, in northeast Minnesota; and Michelle Fishbach in the rural western 7th.
As of publication, results had not been released in the heavily Democratic 4th District comprising St. Paul and some suburbs. U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum is expected to win.
Democrat Kelly Morrison won the only open seat, Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, the safely blue seat in the west metro suburbs vacated by former U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who left office after a failed bid for the presidency.
Craig won the state’s most competitive district, showing that her appeal to moderates on issues like border security and law enforcement continue to garner support in the purple district south of the Twin Cities.
Craig faced first-time candidate Teirab, a former local and federal prosecutor and the son of a Sudanese immigrant who Republicans had hoped would break through. He suffered from lack of name recognition and the money to buy it. Craig launched withering attacks — twice judged dishonest by media fact checkers — against Teirab for his prosecutorial decisions and anti-abortion stance.
Democrats had to hold Craig’s seat in their quest to retake the U.S. House majority they narrowly lost in 2022.
Klobuchar won a fourth term in the Senate by defeating Republican candidate Royce White, a former professional athlete whose campaign was plagued by a series of scandals: spending campaign money at strip clubs; failing to pay more than $100,000 in child support; endorsing the flat earth conspiracy theory; White also employed a combative online presence, where he frequently calls critics “cucks” and said “the bad guys won WWII.”
The Minnesota GOP’s endorsement of White over Joe Fraser — a more traditional Republican candidate — revealed apparent flaws with the Republicans’ nomination process, and the deep divisions within the party.
Republicans have not won a statewide election since former Gov. Tim Pawlenty won reelection in 2006.
Emmer, the House majority whip, is likely to remain in Republican leadership.
Emmer, who briefly made a play for House speaker in the fall of 2023, has become a prodigious fundraiser, raising enough to cover his campaign against a nominal opponent in his ruby red district, but also securing influence among his GOP colleagues, to whom he sent millions of dollars in the effort to retain control of the House.