ELBA, Minn. — Two-term State Representative Steve Jacob wants to follow his mentor, Steve Drazkowski, to the State Senate. Jacob, an Elba farmer, announced his candidacy for State Senate District 20 seat that Drazkowski is vacating. Since he arrived at the Capitol in 2022, Jacob has saddled closely with Drazkowski, a veteran legislator, on key issues. Palling around the Capitol they called themselves “The Steves” — kind of ideologically joined at the hip. Both are Republicans and pride themselves beng on the party’s right-wing fringe. They share a fundamental distrust of government as an evilly intrusive force, not as a tool for social or cultural betterment. They see taxes as confiscation. In his first term in the House, Jacob voted against establishing Juneteenth as a Minnesota state holiday: “I saw this as an expansion of government where the taxpayer will be charged, but will receive one less day of service from all local levels of government.” His was the lone House vote against Juneteenth, which was an important issue to the 400,000 black people who comprise 8% of the state population.

Earlier: Drazkowski: Count me out of 2026 Senate race

Jacob profile

Jacob has a high education from Plainview. He prides himself as running a fourth-generation family farm. He also operates tourist cabins on his farm on a Whitewater ridgetop above Elma. His public service includes terms on his area’s Soil and Water Conservation Board, the Winona County Planning Commission, and the Road and Bridge Committee. In 2010 he developed a deep grudge against county authorities, =They had refused to waive zoning rules to allow him to cut a road into a hillside at his farm. It was an example, he said, of government power run amuck and interfering with his rights as property owner. He used the issue to win a rural seat on the Winona County Board and to continue as on the County Board of Commissioners for 10 years. A theme in Jacob’s County Board record was as a government minimalist. He was reflexively against taxes and sought to downsize county staffing and trim citizen services. As a state legislator he has joined the Republican cliché chorus against waste, fraud and abuse.

Jacob: Elba farmer. Served 10 years on Winona County Board Now in second term in Minnesota House. Age 59.

Verbatim

Jacob: “I am truly humbled by the community support I have received. If elected, the community can count on my continued dedication to conservative value.”