First things first.
Colorado,
Indiana,
Nevada,
North Carolina,
Iowa,
New Mexico,
West Virginia,
Kansas,
Connecticut,
Illinois,
Missouri,
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming,
Wisconsin,
Kentucky and
Oregon.
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JUMP!
Minnesota has 8 congressional districts of which four are held by Democrats and four are held by Republicans. There are two open races, one of which (the 5th) is currently held by a Democrat and the other (the 6th) is held by a Republican.
MN-1 - Southern portion of the state including Rochester. The reddie incumbent, Gil Gutknecht, won this race with 60% of the vote, although Kerry carried 47%, making this a very purple district. Our guy, Tim Walz, was formerly the Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard. Yes "the". As I understand it, there's only one Command Sergeant Major. That means that this guy has serious leadership qualities. He did pretty well with fundraising, garnering about 60% of the incumbent's dollars, but only has about 1/3 the COH that the reddie does. Still, he's been working the hell out of this race, and has moved it to a Top-50 race, and, while I haven't seen a lot of polling, there's at least one where he's in the MoE. The reddie still has this one, but time is on our side.
MN-1: MMmmmmmaybe.
MN-2 - South Twin Cities suburbs, generally affluent. The reddie incumbent, John Kline, won this district with 56% of the vote. Our candidate is Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent was forced to retired after warning her superiors about lapses in the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui. I had erroneously reported that she was fired for warning her superiors not to go into Iraq, but that was from a bad website and I apologize for the error. There's a lot of great narrative about Coleen, but she's in desperate need of cash to get the message out. In the meantime, the reddie incumbent has gone negative. Why attack a no-name challenger with no money? Um, how does 45-42 sound? Yep, with bupkes in the bank, Coleen still has this at a 3 point race. If you have money to throw her way, throw it. She'll be on my ActBlue page.
MN-2: Here's hoping!
MN-3 - Hennepin County suburbs, also generally affluent. The reddie incumbent, Jim Ramstad, won this district with 65%, although Kerry carried 48%, so we have another purple district here. And our gal is Wendy Wilde, a radio broadcast professional and a talk show host. She's running on a "vote for mom" platform and I don't really get it, and I really didn't want to see a misspelling on her web page ("opponant") but that's me. Polls aren't easy to find, but concensus is that Ramstad is not as popular as a 16 year incumbent should be. Maybe 2008 will be our year in the MN-3...
MN-3: I don't think so.
MN-4 - St. Paul and environs. Our incumbent, Betty McCollum, won tihs district with 57% in what was evidently a successful three party election and the reddie only got 33% and Kerry got 62%. Her opponent, Obi Sium, is a hydrologist from Eritrea who became a citizen 14 years ago. No question the guy has drive, and I wish he was one of ours... he just so isn't. Which is ok. Because there's no way he's winning this race.
MN-4: Safe Blue.
MN-5 - Minneapolis and suburbs. The incumbent, Martin Sabo, won this district with 70%, and, impressive as that is, Kerry carried it with 71%. Unfortunately, the incumbent has announced his intention to retire. This is a blue district through and through, but, whaddaya figure? The Democratic nominee, Keith Ellison is a Nation of Islam Muslim, and he's running against a Jew who is claiming Ellison is anti-semetic (well, anti-Jewish, really, as Arabs are Semites too). Still it's pretty ballsy for Alan Fine to equate the first Black to run for Congress in Minnesota with the Klan. Expect a dogfight here, but, in the end, this district is just too Blue to vote Red.
MN-5: Blue by a nose.
MN-6 - North and East Twin Cities suburbs. The incumbent reddie, Mark Kennedy is abandoning his seat for a Senate run, which he will lose. This leaves this seat open in a district that gave Bush 57% last time. This is the infamous Patty Wetterling district, the 18th most competitive race in the country. Patty Wetterling is outraising Michelle Bachmann, but COH is about even. Bachmann is slightly ahead in the polls, and Republicans seem to be supporting her more than Democrats are supporting Wetterling. More details here. Still, this is a Democratic year, and there's going to be a lot of money poured into this race. The AFL-CIO is vowing to put boots on the ground. Will it be enough?
MN-6: Tossup.
MN-7 - Rural Northwest portion of the state. Our incumbent, Collin Peterson, got 66% of the vote last time in a split district that gave Bush 55%. His opponent, Mike Barrett, is a crazed wingnut who says of our guy that he "Refused to vote for the Terri Schiavo bill to allow a new look at her case before she was maliciously starved to death in Florida.". Even the reddies are running away from this guy. No COH to speak of. Thankfully.
MN-7: Safe Blue.
MN-8 - Rural Northeast portion of the state including Duluth. Our incumbent, James Oberstar, snagged 65% of the voter last time, beating Kerry's 53%. I'm just going to point you here and call the race...
MN-8: Safe Blue.