Is Minnesota's most competitive House seat still a swing district?

DFL Rep. Angie Craig rode the blue wave to victory in 2018 and has fended off close contests in the last three election cycles by appealing to a wide range of swing voters in the Second Congressional District.

All of her races have been close, but her closest race to date came in the 2020 presidential election when she defeated GOP Tyler Kistner by just over two points. Entering a presidential election year again will test Craig's mainstream appeal and could determine whether the Second Congressional District remains one of the last swing seats in the state.

A majority of county voters have chosen the winning presidential candidate in every election cycle since 2000. Some people call them independents, but Joe Atkins, a Dakota County commissioner from Inver Grove Heights, prefers “zigzag” candidates.

“They work their way through the ballot and vote for people based on whether they support bread-and-butter issues like public safety, transportation and the economy,” said Atkins, a former DFL member of the House of Representatives. “It’s more about the candidate than partisanship. The trend has been more blue in recent years, but a Republican can definitely win in CD2.”

Craig will face GOP political newcomer Joe Teirab in November. He's a former assistant federal prosecutor and Marine who hopes to take out the Republicans and convince these “Zig Zags” to give the Republican candidate a new look. Both candidates have significant campaign coffers and support from national groups.

But would a fourth-term Craig win suggest the district is trending? The answer is not easy. Political observers expect the district to remain a watershed for the foreseeable future.

“I think we could see in the last elections that the trend is more towards the blue. It’s still so close to 50/50,” said state Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley. “It wasn’t that long ago that we had a Republican member of Congress and some really hard-fought elections.”

Craig became only the second Democrat to hold the seat since the 1940s when she defeated former Rep. Jason Lewis by more than five points in a 2018 rematch. And the race between Craig and Kistner was decided by 9,580 votes and their 2022 rematch by just over 17,000 votes.