NEW ULM, Minn. – Republican Brad Finstad, who touted a brief state-level term under ex-President Trump in the U.S. Agriculture Department, is going to Congress. Finstad defeated retired Hormel meat-packing executive Jeff Ettinger 50% to 48%. It was a special election for the final five months of the late Congress member Jim Hagedorn’s term from southern Minnesota. In a separate election on the primary ballot, Ettinger took 92% of the Democratic vote. That pits Finstad and Ettinger against each other again for a full term as the MN-1 representative in Congress. In the last weks’ of the campaign, as Trump’s legal imbroglios deepend, Finstad eased off his Trump connections – and he easliy defeated State Representative Jeremy Munson. Munson had espoused the debunked theory theory that President Biden’s 2020 was illegitimate.
Finstad. New Ulm farmer. Former three-term state representative.