On Thursday, former Minnesota Rep. Jason Lewis announced that he would seek the GOP nod to take on Democratic Sen. Tina Smith rather than try and reclaim the 2nd Congressional District. That same day Doug Wardlow, the GOP’s 2018 nominee for attorney general, said he’d endorse Lewis rather than run himself. MyPillow founder Mike Lindell had also occasionally been mentioned as a prospective candidate, but he’s also backing Lewis.
Lewis is a former conservative radio shock-jock who spent his career firing off racist and misogynist tirades. In his long career, Lewis has said, among other things, “If you don't want to own a slave, don't, but don't tell other people they can't," "Since women are ignorant, they are simply ignorant of the important issues in life. Somebody's got to educate them," and, “A mass majority of young single women who couldn't explain what GDP means. They care about abortion and gay marriage. They care about ‘The View.’ They are non-thinking.”
Lewis won the GOP nod for the competitive 2nd District in 2016, and Democrat Angie Craig and her allies aired ad after ad highlighting Lewis’ long and ugly history. However, Lewis pulled off a 47-45 victory as Donald Trump was carrying the district by the same margin.
Craig soon announced that she’d seek a rematch, and this time, she focused her efforts on attacking Lewis’ voting record, including his support for repealing the Affordable Care Act, and stayed away from his talk radio past. Craig kept up this strategy even after Buzzfeed and CNN unearthed more of Lewis’ old offensive comments, including a 2012 broadcast where he asked “are we beyond those days where a woman can behave as a slut, but you can't call her a slut?”
This time, Craig turned the tables and beat Lewis 53-47. Smith also carried the 2nd District by a similar 51-45 spread as she was winning her special election statewide 53-42. Lewis, true to form, published an op-ed the next week in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Who Lost the House? John McCain,” where he savaged the late Arizona GOP senator for stopping the party’s drive to repeal Obamacare.
Donald Trump narrowly lost Minnesota 46-45 in 2016, and Lewis is counting on him to carry the state this time. That will be a very challenging proposition, though, unless suburban seats like Lewis’ old 2nd District shift back towards Trump after rejecting Republicans last year. But Lewis is making it clear that he’ll run as a Trump ally anyway, and he said in June, “You’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. I don’t think it pays to run away from a Trump presidency.”
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