In close Minn. House races, personal problems old and new can be vexing for candidates

One incumbent has scrambled to address an allegation of abusive behavior first lodged 16 years ago. A political newcomer had long-ago, anti-police social media posts resurface in a fashion that raised suggestions of hypocrisy. And another lawmaker found himself explaining a failed business that resulted in a still-pending default judgment.

This is the time of year when the dirt gets shoveled in pivotal legislative campaigns, which are far enough down the ballot to be mostly obscure to many voters but are collectively crucial to determining the direction of state government.

All 134 Minnesota House seats are on November’s ballot, but only a dozen or so are considered competitive races. In the final push to Election Day, political parties and outside entities with keen interest on who controls the House next year are looking for anything in a candidate’s past that could make them unpalatable to voters, from the professional to the personal.

For state-level candidates, mistakes and allegations from their lives before starting a political career can come back to bite them. These incidents often crop up at inopportune times because the vetting process is minimal or absent for candidates lower on the ballot.

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State parties do not vet all state-level candidates running under their party, but rely on party primaries and local party unit endorsements to flag any blemishes sooner. More often than not, a state party has to take a candidate’s word.

And for races that could turn in either direction, the opposition party can often be the first to put a glare on candidate problems.

As digital footprints widen and public records become more accessible to anyone with a laptop and internet access, embarrassing disclosures from a candidate’s past can become low-hanging fruit for an opposing party or outside entity to use to help shape the narrative around a race.

“The thing about first-time candidates or lower level candidates is a lot of times you’re doing sort of the first press of the olives for the olive oil,” said Chris Haxo, an opposition researcher at Forward Risk, an independent investigations firm that has a department specializing in political opposition research. “You’re more likely to find things in court searches that have never been found before. You’re more likely to find that they haven’t paid their taxes for the first time.”

A wide range of disclosures

Opposition researchers like Haxo, who formerly did work for the Democratic Governors Association, will scour a candidate’s record for anything that could be potentially damaging. Haxo normally starts by doing a simple Google search, then uses databases to look up criminal records, property transactions and tax liens.

The severity of the information brought to light can vary.

What ends up coming to the surface can be policy related. This fall, Axios reported Caleb Steffenhagen, a Republican candidate for the Chanhassen area swing seat, had a history working with Christian nonprofit Dangerous Men United, a Minnesota-based men’s group that advises members against same-sex attraction.

Steffenhagen recently received an endorsement from the Minnesota Log Cabin Republicans, which represents LGBTQ+ conservatives. Steffenhagen told Axios his work with the Dangerous Men United group would not influence how he would vote.

“As an individual, I believe in freedom,” Steffehagen told Axios. “So if that’s the lifestyle you want to live, I don’t like it when the government steps in and makes rules upon rules.”

Steffenhagen is running against DFL Rep. Lucy Rehm, who won the west metro seat by 417 votes out of about 21,000 cast in 2022.

Other times, disclosures can be more personal.

Last month, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported first-term lawmaker Rep. Jeff Dotseth, R-Kettle River, was charged with domestic assault in 2008. He pleaded guilty to a lesser offense of disorderly conduct. Court records show Dotseth’s then-wife called police to report Dotseth had assaulted her. In affidavits, his ex-wife and stepson characterized it as more than a decade of domestic abuse. Dotseth denied the allegations in an affidavit and also after the article was published.

“More than 15 years ago I went through an extremely difficult divorce and child custody dispute. There were hurtful allegations made against me that I deny, including a sworn affidavit I filed under oath under penalty of perjury,” Dotseth said in a statement. “Ultimately the charge was dismissed and I pled guilty to disorderly conduct. I now have a cordial relationship with my ex-wife, and have worked to put this difficult chapter of my life behind me.”

Within an hour of the story’s publication, the Minnesota DFL issued a press release condemning Dotseth. The next day, DFL Chair Ken Martin and House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, held a news conference to call on Republicans to urge Dotseth to suspend his campaign and be expelled from the GOP caucus.

In a statement following the article’s publication, House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, made no indication she would call on Dotseth to end his reelection campaign.

“Domestic violence is an absolute red line for me, it’s never acceptable under any circumstances,” Demuth said in a statement. “This case was resolved through the legal process more than 15 years ago, concluding with no charge or conviction for domestic assault.”

When asked by reporters if Martin or Long had known about the allegations prior to the article’s publication, both said they had heard rumors but didn’t know the extent of what was contained in court filings.

“I had heard there was something there and to find out the extensive reporting that was done revealed a lot more than I actually knew,” Martin said. “So it’s quite disturbing to be honest with you. But we had heard that there was something there.”

Neither acknowledged how long they had known about the court records before the Star Tribune article was published.

Court records stemming from Dotseth’s disorderly conduct plea indicate that he lost his gun rights for a period of time. Martin pointed that out, and he noted that last session Dotseth voted against a “red flag law” that allows Minnesota judges to temporarily remove a person’s firearms if they’re believed to pose a risk to others or are at significant risk of suicide.

“There are some very important questions that need to be asked,” Martin said.

Stale reports?

Incidents that happened 10 or 15 years ago can often be brought up and repurposed in a new light, especially if the incident that happened has ties to recent legislation a lawmaker helped pass or voted against.

“I think that largely people forgive for something old that has not had a recurrence, that there’s not something tied more in the present,” said Amy Koch, a former Senate majority leader and Republican political strategist. “You just gotta be sorry, you gotta work on it and you gotta do better.”

In 2010, Jessica Johnson, posted to her Facebook page, “F the police!” That was well before Johnson, the Republican nominee for a Stillwater-area House seat, had put her political campaign in motion.

Johnson is endorsed by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association.

In a statement to MPR News, Johnson said that the context of the post was, “written in a moment of frustration as I was struggling to make ends meet after my car was unexpectedly towed. It does not reflect my deep respect and strong support for law enforcement.”

Johnson said voters in Washington County are more concerned with inflation, student test scores, high taxes and housing costs.

“These are the issues I’ll be focusing on, and they are what the media should be covering, rather than out-of-context social media posts from well over a decade ago,” Johnson said in the statement.

Johnson is running against Rep. Josiah Hill, DFL-Stillwater, a first-term lawmaker. Hill won the seat in 2022 with 54 percent of the vote.

Other politicians have legal issues that stem from long before their time in politics.

DFL Rep. Brad Tabke has outstanding debt judgment that stems from a landscape company he had before the Great Recession of 2008. He said it stems from a “multi-millionaire real estate developer” not paying a six-figure sum of money that put a strain on his business.

“We’ve been working to pay those things back over time,” Tabke said when reached about the outstanding debt recently, adding that it is being balanced with other financial considerations.

He said the struggling business and back debt have been well-covered in the past. Tabke was first elected in 2018, lost in 2020 and returned to office in 2022.

The Minnesota Reformer reported this week that Tabke also has faced liens and is on a back-tax repayment plan with the state.

Swing district focus

The closer the district politically, the more that a damaging detail from a candidate’s past can matter.

In 2022, Dotseth won his house seat by 454 votes. The race for the Barnum-area seat is expected to be close again. The broader race for the Minnesota House will be decided in a little over a dozen districts, mainly in the Twin Cities suburbs and a few in greater Minnesota.

Haxo said opposition research can move the needle in races that can be won or lost by a few dozen votes.

“Things that undercut (a candidate’s) story, I think those things are incredibly important,” Haxo said.

There are representatives from both parties that have been charged with or pleaded guilty to drunk driving. One is Rep. Dan Wolgamott, DFL-St. Cloud, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DWI charge in 2023.

The race for Wolgamott’s seat, District 14B, could again be close. As of mid-September, outside spending in the district had topped $250,000. His Republican challenger, Sue Ek, told MPR News that Wolgamott’s DWI has come up while she has been door-knocking.

“While I do not initiate his personal issues at the door, they do come up,” Ek said in a statement. “Clearly, voters are seeing some red flags regarding both his DWI and his record of raising taxes, enabling fraud and making life expensive for St. Cloud families.”

In an interview, Wolgamott said his DWI has come up “a couple of times” but it’s mostly been from individuals showing support. He acknowledged that it was a mistake he’s learning from and pointed to his Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association endorsement

“I’m very proud to have their endorsement because they’ve looked at everything in my personal and professional life and our police trust me with their support,” Wolgamott said. “I’ve just been so grateful for all the support I’ve gotten from people in our community, my family. It’s been a pretty powerful and encouraging situation.”

Rep. Brion Curran of White Bear Lake also pleaded guilty to a DWI charge earlier this year. Curran, a former Chisago County sheriff’s deputy, was challenged for the DFL nomination in August but won a primary. Rep. Matt Grossell, R-Clearwater, pleaded guilty to a DWI charge in 2023 but is not seeking reelection.

Political Vetting

DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman said her caucus campaign team will comb through court filings when they’re looking for candidates in hard to recruit seats. But that doesn’t always happen in districts where people come forward and run outside the recruitment process.

“There’s not as much vetting, because I have to accept whoever the local district sends me,” Hortman told MPR News. “We have had situations where people have gotten elected from Minneapolis and St Paul, in particular, who have had backgrounds that were not vetted by us before they became the endorsed candidate. Because we presume that in those competitive seats, the battle for DFL endorsement or the battle to win the primary will flush those issues out.”

Koch likes to call opposition research, “the dark arts.” Before her time in the state Senate, she helped recruit state Senate candidates for the Republican Party.

“A good campaign does opposition research on the opponent and does opposition research on themselves,” Koch said.

The problem, she said, is there’s often not enough money in a local race to do either of these things. State parties often rely on candidates to “self police.”

“I didn’t have money to run oppo-research on my own candidates,” Koch said. “I had to sort of trust that they weren’t up to hijinks.”

MPR News senior politics reporter Clay Masters in St. Paul and correspondent Kirsti Marohn in St. Cloud contributed to this report.

Correction (Oct. 17, 2024): An earlier version of this story said DFL leaders asked a lawmaker to resign over domestic violence allegations when they urged actions short of resignations. The initial version also said several lawmakers currently seeking reelection have also pleaded guilty to DWI charges. Only two are seeking reelection. The story has been updated.