Congressman Erick Paulsen represents one of those suburban districts — MN-03 — that Democrats are eyeing as targets for flipping. It went for Barack Obama twice, and for Hilary Clinton by 10 pts, all while Rep. Paulsen was easily winning his own re-elections.
Could it finally be the year that national trends catch up with Rep. Paulsen?
If one is to believe the message in his latest ad, he is certainly concerned about it. As reported by Minnesota Public Radio, Rep. Paulsen is, quite literally, trying to paddle away from the President in an ad (embedded below) set in the idyllic Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of northeastern Minnesota — an area that has been itself the subject of conflicts between conservationists and mining interests. His opponent, Dean Phillips, is having none of it and hit back hard, showing how Paulsen has a terrible environmental record.
And as for Paulsen’s attempts at creating that distance between he and the president? Try harder...