Democrats make pitch as special 1st District primary election nears

May 11—Just over 100 people showed up in Mankato Tuesday night — two weeks before the finalists will be decided in the race to replace the late Congressman Jim Hagedorn — to hear from five Democratic contenders for the party's nomination.

It was a varied group on the theater stage in the old Fitzgerald Middle School. A retired retail worker, the wealthy former CEO of Hormel Foods, a university law professor, a daycare operator and a formerly homeless university student.

On the issues, the group was largely in agreement. But after Democratic voters in the 1st Congressional District twice watched their candidate fall to Hagedorn in 2018 and 2020, each of the five aimed to make the case that they were uniquely suited to win in the Aug. 9 special election.

"We're all saying kind of the same thing in different flavors," said Candice Deal-Bartell near the end of the two-hour forum, describing it as a "kind of Kumbaya" event.

The campaign leading up to Aug. 9, when the choice will be between a single Republican, a single Democrat and a pair of pro-marijuana longshots, will not be one where "everyone shares the same values," said Deal-Bartell of Mankato.

The founder and operator of the downtown daycare facility Cultivate Mankato Child Development and Resource Center, Deal-Bartell argued that she was best equipped to run a winning race.

So did Jeff Ettinger of Austin.

If primary voters select him to be the DFL nominee on May 24, the retired Hormel CEO pledged to offer voters across southern Minnesota a common-sense, collaborative community leader as their representative in the U.S. House. And Ettinger said he would offer an appealing contrast to a far-right Republican on the ballot, specifically mentioning state Rep. Jeremy Munson of Lake Crystal as the GOP's likely nominee.

"I'm going to go to every section of this district and make the case ... convincing folks that we have the mainstream option in this election," he said.

Warren Anderson, a North Mankato retiree who spent many years working for Happy Dan's convenience stores, suggested that voters are ready for a plain-spoken common man after what they've witnessed in Congress for decades.

"What you basically see is politicians who have been in office a long time or you see a bunch of lawyers," Anderson said.

Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said a Democrat can win the race despite Hagedorn's two wins and the 1st District's even stronger backing of Donald Trump both in 2016 and 2020.

The key, according to Painter, is for the DFL candidate to focus on the economic struggles of average people in the district, emphasizing policies that will prioritize them over the billionaires and wealthy corporations which he said currently run the federal government.

"I believe strongly that the seat can be flipped to blue," Painter said. "... But it can not be about partisanship."

Sarah Brakebill-Hacke — the child of an opioid addict who ended up in foster care and was later homeless but managed to get accepted at Yale and is now working on a master's degree from Cambridge — said she offers voters a more genuine candidate, one who understands "the need and the suffering."

"People who are disconnected from the need only understand the issues abstractly," said Brakebill-Hacke of the southeastern Minnesota town of Eyota.

Although the forum mostly matched Deal-Bartell's "Kumbaya" description, it opened with an extremely pointed attack by Brakebill-Hacke on two of the other contenders — the ones who are newest to the DFL.

Without using Ettinger's name, she mentioned his campaign contribution to Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney. Ettinger has said the donation was a show of support for a Republican who attempted to hold Trump accountable, but Brakebill-Hacke noted Cheney's opposition to abortion.

"Obviously protecting reproductive rights is not a priority there," she said of Ettinger.

And she described Painter, who served as an ethics lawyer in the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, as a candidate who "oversaw the confirmation process of Alito."

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is the author of a draft decision leaked to the media earlier this month that appears to presage an overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

With the real possibility of abortion becoming illegal this summer in much of the country, all five Democratic candidates at the forum adamantly stated their belief in women's reproductive rights and said they would support federal legislation codifying those rights.

The candidates were similarly united on the need for an affordable government medical insurance option for any American who can't afford health care coverage. There was consensus, as well, on the need for income-based subsidized child-care, background checks for all gun purchases, better support for schools from pre-K to college, agricultural policies that focus on family farms and more aggressive action to fight climate change.

But the candidates separated themselves on some topics.

Painter openly supports boosting the number of justices on the Supreme Court to 13 or 15, saying the current conservative majority is dangerous not just because of the looming abortion decision but also because they've overturned laws aimed at limiting the ability of wealthy interests to influence government.

"I'm sick and tired of this country being owned by the 1% because five justices think that's just OK," Painter said.

Anderson, who calls himself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, mentioned budgetary issues often and said he would not support universal college-loan forgiveness, citing a young co-worker at Lowe's who openly admitted that a significant part of his college loans were spent on numerous vacations during his college years.

Deal-Bartell, while repeatedly making clear that education was a major priority, said the release of the Alito draft has moved reproductive rights to the top of her agenda.

"This is personal," she said. "I'm pissed."

Ettinger, although he is a firm believer in background checks for gun purchases, said he couldn't see a clear case for restricting gun ownership by weapon type.

"I really think we need to focus on the people causing the problems rather than the guns themselves," he said.

The candidates who showed up in Mankato are among eight who filed as Democrats for the May 24 primary election. Twenty candidates in all filed for the race, and the primary election will winnow them to four.

The top vote-getter among 10 Republicans on the ballot will advance to the Aug. 9 special election, as will the winner among the Democrats. In addition, two political parties focused on marijuana legalization each have just one candidate in the race, so those two are already set to appear on the Aug. 9 ballot on behalf of the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis and the Legalize Marijuana Now parties.

The forum was hosted by the Blue Earth County DFL, Brown County DFL, Faribault County DFL, Nicollet County DFL, Waseca County DFL, Watonwan County DFL, Senate District 18 DFL and the Minnesota State University College Democrats.