Minnesota House leaders look ahead to November as their parties vie for control of the chamber

CATHY WURZER: We're to focus next on the State House of Representatives, where there were 22 contested races in yesterday's primary. Six GOP incumbents and one DFL incumbent had challengers. Just one Republican, Representative Brian Johnson of Cambridge, lost his bid for a seventh term. Isanti Mayor James Gordon notched a convincing victory there.

Well, now that the field is set for November, the DFL will work to maintain its state capital majorities amid a hard push from the GOP to break that one-party control.

Joining us right now to lay out their party's priorities now through November, DFL House Majority Leader Jamie Long, who represents a portion of South Minneapolis and Republican House Deputy Minority Leader Paul Torkelson, who represents a rural district in southern Minnesota. Gentlemen, welcome to the program.

JAMIE LONG: Good to be with you, Cathy.

PAUL TORKELSON: Good afternoon, Cathy and Brian. Great to be with you.

CATHY WURZER: Thanks for being here. Representative Torkelson, I'm going to start with you. You had some incumbents facing some pretty stiff challenges. And as I mentioned, Representative Johnson fell to defeat, but a few longtime members squeaked through-- Representative Kresha, 35-vote win.

Why do you think that the pressure was there for those representatives and your takeaway from the results?

PAUL TORKELSON: Well, first, the takeaway-- we're very pleased with the results, except, of course, losing Representative Johnson. He did a great work while he was in the House. He's a very dedicated member, actually worked very hard in his campaign, came up short, though, last night. But it's going to be interesting to get to know the new candidate there, potential Representative Gordon. He's a mayor of Isanti, seems like he's got a good, solid community background, so looking forward to getting to know him better and helping him win that race.

As far as the rest of our candidates, the rest of our incumbents managed to, as you say, squeak by. It was close, especially for Representative Kresha. You know, we've got a variety of opinions within the Republican Party, and the process brings forward some candidates that are interested in challenging our incumbents. That's a healthy system when people have a chance to bring their ideas forward and then go to a contest and see who wins.

BRIAN BAKST: Well, Representative Long, your party defended its one seat where an incumbent was opposed by a fellow DFLer. But there are some open seats where the margins were kind of tight. What were the crosscurrents among the candidates in your party?

JAMIE LONG: Well, I first want to say that I'm happy some of the Republican incumbents are coming back. I think there were some fairly extreme folks running against them. And it's always good to have people across the aisle can work with. I think they had a little less luck with Royce White at the top of the ticket.

We were a little less eventful on our side in the State House. We didn't have too many intraparty challenges. We had a couple of open seats where there were challenges. And in Duluth, for example, we had a retirement. And Pete Johnson, who's a firefighter from that community, won, and I think he's going to be an incredible representative.

We had a close primary in Winona and really excited to get to go out and help campaign for Sarah Kruger, who is an incredible candidate down there who won, but not a lot of eventful primaries on our side. I think we're just excited about the momentum with Governor Walz and heading into November.

CATHY WURZER: So let me ask you both this. There are 134 House races on the ballot, right, this fall. And there are 22 primaries in all. So I'm wondering, both of you, how many races might really be truly contested? Representative Torkelson, when you look at the maps, what do you think?

PAUL TORKELSON: Well, we think we have a clear and feasible path to the majority. That means we just need to flip four seats. We think we have candidates in certain districts that are going to do very well.

CATHY WURZER: A for instance-- give me a for instance.

PAUL TORKELSON: Well, Repinski down in Winona is a good, solid candidate that's raised a lot of money and got 90% of the vote last night. Cal Warwas up on the range has run a real strong campaign where we believe he has a very good chance of winning. And there certainly are others in other districts across the state.

The effect of the changes with the governor's effort to be a candidate at the national level I think cuts both ways. And we don't believe it's certainly a death knell for us. We believe it's going to actually, in some cases, strengthen our races.

BRIAN BAKST: What do you think of that analysis, Representative Long?

JAMIE LONG: Yeah, I think there's 15 or so seats that are going to be competitive. And I feel good about our chances of holding on to the majority. We have some incredible candidates on our side, two I'll mention-- Lucia Wroblewski, who is running in the Afton area, former 25-year law enforcement officer and city council member there.

Mark Munger, who's running in Hermantown, that was the seat we lost by just 35 votes last time. He's a former 20-year federal judge and-- state judge, excuse me. And he was also a city attorney up there. So I think that we have folks who we're putting forward who really know their district, are in touch with their communities. And I think that we are not only going to defend a lot of our seats, we're going to flip some as well.

CATHY WURZER: Do you worry, though, that your party's clout or appeal, perhaps, has been diminished in some of the rural areas, Representative Long?

JAMIE LONG: No, I mean, certainly we've seen some shifting of partisan preferences, not just in Minnesota but across the country. But we wouldn't be in the majority but for the districts we represent in greater Minnesota. And we're really the only party that represents the entire state, all communities across the state.

And I think we have a great record to run on for rural Minnesota. We did tremendous investments these past two years in our schools and our infrastructure, brought down the cost of childcare, which is something I know we hear a lot about in greater Minnesota. And so I think our candidates there are going to do well. And I think Governor Walz being on the ticket is going to help.

BRIAN BAKST: Representative Torkelson, the flip side of Democrats potentially struggling in some of these rural areas of late is that Republicans haven't really done that great in first and second ring suburbs, and they've been shut out of the Twin Cities entirely. How much are you worried about a drag from the top of the ticket as you work to regain ground that used to be more Republican?

PAUL TORKELSON: Well, we've certainly gained-- if you look through historically, we've gained a lot of ground in greater Minnesota. There's hardly any DFL representation of the open spots, the open areas of Minnesota.

I can think back to when I was first elected to the House. We only had 47 Republicans. We came up from that to gain the majority, and we can do it again. It's only four seats this time.

As far as the top of the ticket goes, though, when we look historically how our Republican candidates do compared to President Trump specifically, many if not all, but most of our candidates outperform Trump on the ticket. So if he does reasonably well or wins in Minnesota, we believe that will help us get over the top.

CATHY WURZER: Say, Representative Torkelson, you mentioned this here a couple of minutes ago about Governor Walz at the top of the Democratic ticket and how there is obviously enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz ticket, right? You were saying it could cut both ways, and it could help you. Did I hear that right? Why might you think that that's true?

PAUL TORKELSON: I do think that's true. In fact, I'm up here in Duluth today. I spoke to the soybean growers, and some of their members I spoke with afterwards have already spoken to individuals that are saying, wait a minute. Waltz has been bad for our part of the state, and we don't want to see him anywhere near the vice president's office, and we're fired up to vote for Republicans because he is on the national ticket.

CATHY WURZER: All right, I want to ask about issues here real quickly. Representative Long, I mean, there's obviously tons of personality and factors and that kind of thing, but what are some of the driving issues that you think are going to play statewide that can help you? You mentioned a few of them here.

JAMIE LONG: Yeah, well, I think affordability is certainly top of folks' minds, and I think that we have done quite a lot in that area. And mentioned child care-- we've also affordable housing, brought down costs there, provided free school meals, which is incredibly popular.

Reproductive rights is still coming up on a ton of doors that I've been on. And folks know that there's only one party in the state that's going to protect their reproductive freedoms. We also are hearing quite a lot of concern about gun violence, and the actions we've taken on gun violence prevention I think are playing well.

So I think we have an awful lot that we can run on. And we can talk about the ability to make more progress if we're coming back into the majority to help invest in our schools and infrastructure and protect our freedoms.

CATHY WURZER: And Representative Torkelson, what are your folks hearing at the doors?

PAUL TORKELSON: Well, the truth is the Democrats have spent a $19 billion surplus. They've raised taxes by another $10 billion. That hardly makes things more affordable for the average taxpayer. We've seen many examples of pervasive fraud that has not been addressed by the Democrats-- Feeding our Future leading the list, but many other examples.

They're making life more expensive for Minnesotans. And at the same time as we're giving away free meals in schools, we see school test scores actually declining, and we've seen truancy rates at an all-time high. These are not good results, and people across Minnesota understand that the trifecta has been bad for them. I think they believe that at least divided government is better than what we've had these last two years.

CATHY WURZER: Well, I appreciate your time, both of you. Good luck down the trail here. Thank you.

JAMIE LONG: Thanks, Cathy. Thanks, Brian.

PAUL TORKELSON: Thanks for having us. It's been a pleasure, and look forward to seeing you down the road.

CATHY WURZER: House Majority Leader Jamie Long's been with us and House Deputy Minority Leader Paul Torkelson.