House - MN 7th - Collin Peterson

Democratic incumbent defending his district running along most of rural western Minnesota

Video Clip: Support Collin Peterson

Collin Peterson is in the toughest election of his long career, fighting to continue representing the rural Minnesotans in the vast 7thdistrict in the state’s west, stretching from the Canadian border almost to Iowa. He has served 15 terms in the House, as his district has become more and more Republican. No other House Democrat represents a district that voted so strongly for Trump in 2018, who won in his district with a margin of 31 points.

He wins in such a conservative district because he shares the roots of his constituents, growing up on a farm, serving in the Army National Guard and becoming a small business owner in the district. He is an avid sportsman, enjoying hunting and fishing, and flies his own single engine plane around the district to visit constituents. He understands their concerns. “When it comes to agriculture issues…farmers across my district, and across the country appreciate my experience and knowledge on these issues, especially when times are tough.” He is down to earth, for example having played in rock bands for decades, including entertaining American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of a Congressional band, and playing with Willie Nelson in Farm Aid concerts.

In Congress he is the most senior member of the powerful House Agriculture Committee and serves as its current Chairman. He has been a leader in passage of the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills. As Collin said in a recent debate, ““There isn’t a meeting that goes on in agriculture in Washington that it doesn’t start until I get in the room — and it doesn’t end until I leave.” He is a founder of the Blue Dog Coalition, and one of its few remaining members, noted for his independence and straight talk. “I’ll keep working as hard as I can” for constituents, Peterson says. “People will just have to take me as I am.”

His opponent, Michelle Fischbach, has her political roots in the anti-abortion movement. Her mother is the long-serving associate executive director of the starkly anti-abortion group National Right to Life Committee, and her husband leads one of its divisions in Minnesota. The largest pro-life group in the state, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in their endorsement of Fischbach, ‘there is no other candidate in this race – and no Minnesota elected official, for that matter – who has a pro-life record nearly as extensive as Michelle’s.”

When Fischbach launched her campaign she said she could not think of a single issue where she disagreed with Trump. She has been endorsed in her primary by Trump, and has endorsements from people like Michele Bachmann. She was nominated after a bitter primary race; one of the Republican candidates filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing the Fischbach campaign of violating campaign finance laws by allegedly coordinating with PACs affiliated with anti-abortion groups. There were also allegations of harassment against one of her press aides who phoned an opposing candidate up to 60 times a day, allegedly in an attempt to disrupt the other campaign – this led to a restraining order, and eventually the press aide left Fischbach’s campaign team.

Fischbach will make this a tough race because she is well-known in the district after 22 years in the state Senate and two years as the unelected Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. But mostly it is the money being spent by the Trump campaign to win Minnesota, with a focus on its rural areas. ““The Trump campaign has been door-knocking for months to turn out voters in greater Minnesota. There will be more people getting out to vote for Trump in 2020 than there were in 2016,” according to a Republican former state senate majority leader.

Collin faces the fight of his career, and has refused support from the DCCC and national Democratic groups because his constituency is so Republican. So he needs our help in this last month to hold off a well-financed challenger in a tough district.