Republican Joe Teirab to face Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in Minnesota’s most competitive Congressional district

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Welcome to a special edition of Minnesota Now. I'm Cathy Wurzer, and I'm joined by MPR News' politics editor Brian Bakst. Hey.

BRIAN BAKST: We're doing this again, huh?

CATHY WURZER: We are.

BRIAN BAKST: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: We were so good the last time, they're having us back together. Brian's buckling in for a busy hour. So it's game on for November's general election now that the primary is over and races are firmed up. There were three US House races which were ones to watch, so we're going to go through those results.

DFL Congresswoman Ilhan Omar beat former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels in a rematch. She won by 13 percentage points. That's a much larger margin than her 2022 win of two percentage points. At a campaign party in Minneapolis last night, Omar's supporters cheered and hugged when the news was announced. She started her remarks with a politics of joy theme, but quickly turned to her opponent.

ILHAN OMAR: We run the politics of joy.

AUDIENCE: That's right. Yes!

AUDIENCE: Yes.

[CHEERING]

ILHAN OMAR: Because we know it is joyful to fight for your neighbors.

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

[CHEERING]

ILHAN OMAR: We know it is joyful to make sure everybody has access to health care.

AUDIENCE: [ALL AGREEING]

ILHAN OMAR: We know it is joyful to make sure housing is a human right.

AUDIENCE: That's right. That's right.

ILHAN OMAR: We know it is joyful to fight for health care to be a human right.

[CHEERING]

We know it is joyful to want to live in a peaceful and equitable world.

[CHEERING]

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

ILHAN OMAR: This campaign has been one of the ugliest, most disgusting campaign against me that I have ever, ever witnessed.

CATHY WURZER: Omar, who a member of the Progressive House members known as the Squad, her success contrasts to two other Squad members, representatives Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, who lost their primaries. Pro-Israel groups made large financial expenditures toward their opponents, but that did not happen for the Omar-Samuels race. The Congresswoman will now face Republican Dalia Al-Aqidi in the general election, but Omar is favored to win.

Republican Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach also prevailed in her primary race. She represents a large swath of Northwestern and Western Minnesota. Fischbach was going against businessman Steve Boyd. Neither had won the GOP endorsement, but Fischbach won handily by nearly 30 percentage points. She joined MPR News last night after learning of her victory.

MICHELLE FISCHBACH: Well, I'll tell you, President Trump, obviously, he's popular out here, but I think more importantly is that he knew that I wanted to go to Washington, DC, and work with him when he's elected, and make sure that we move this country forward. And I think he knows that was an important thing about this race.

And now that we're done with the primary, I think this Republican team is going to come together, and we are going to move forward, and we're going to deliver the seventh district for President Trump. We are going to make sure that our State House members get reelected and that we are strong in the State House. And I think that we've had primaries before. And I think after the primary, we come together and we move things forward for the Republican Party.

CATHY WURZER: Fischbach will face Democrat AJ Peters, though Fischbach is favored to win in CD7. Well, the last House race we're going to zoom in on will likely be the most competitive and maybe the most expensive race in Minnesota. That's the second congressional district. The seat is currently held by Democratic Representative Angie Craig, who won her primary last night with more than 90% of the vote. Her Republican challenger in November will be Joe Teirab, who won that party's primary with 76% of the vote.

While the GOP endorsement went to his opponent, Taylor Rahm, who dropped out last month to work for former President Trump's campaign, Teirab was endorsed by US House Representative Tom Emmer, US House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Trump. Teirab is a Marine Corps veteran, former federal prosecutor, and Harvard Law School graduate. He joins us right now to look at the race, rehash it for us, and give us a look at how he'll be preparing for the November election. Congratulations and welcome.

JOE TEIRAB: Thanks a lot, Cathy. Thanks for having me on.

CATHY WURZER: How are you feeling after last night's election?

JOE TEIRAB: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. It's always very humbling to see your name on a ballot. It's just humbling to know that my dad grew up in an African village in Sudan, and now his son is going to be running for Congress here. And so I'm just extremely humbled.

BRIAN BAKST: Hey, we mentioned that Taylor Rahm left the race, but he still got a quarter of the vote. Do you have some fence mending to do with-- among Republicans?

JOE TEIRAB: Look, yeah, we're going to be united here moving forward. And I'm proud about the effort that we put forward here. I think the Republicans in this district, we all know that the stakes are high and that we're going to be united in a front against Angie Craig. And so I'm excited about where we're at.

CATHY WURZER: You were endorsed by former President Trump after Taylor Rahm, who was your GOP opponent, challenged your Trump loyalty. Just how strongly do you hew to the MAGA philosophy? And might you need to soften that a little bit in the general election?

JOE TEIRAB: Look, I'm proud to have earned the support of President Trump. I'm going to be proud to support his agenda to get our economy back on track. I think if you ask most Minnesotans, especially in the second district here in the south metro, they liked the economy a lot better under President Trump than under the Biden-Harris agenda.

They liked the fact that we had a secure border. And now we've had a border crisis with Kamala Harris really failing as borders are. And then our streets are safer under President Trump. And so I'm going to be proud to fight for common sense solutions to make sure that we're putting Minnesotans first.

BRIAN BAKST: And how are you approaching this race now that it's you versus Angie Craig?

JOE TEIRAB: Yeah, look, we're just going to focus on common sense solutions. And I think Angie Craig has been in office now for quite a while. She's a career politician. And I'm going to be focused on those type of common sense issues and the kitchen table issues that I talk to Minnesotans every day, talking about lowering prices for everyday families, talking about making sure that we are fighting against the opioid epidemic.

I was a federal prosecutor, and my job was to keep our streets safe and to put fentanyl traffickers behind bars. And now it's just pouring through the border. You can't have that anymore. And then keeping our streets safe. We need to support law enforcement. So I'm going to focus on solutions on those issues.

BRIAN BAKST: You've raised more than $1.7 million towards your campaign so far, but there will be a ton of money spent in this race, some of it in your support, some of it against you and Angie Craig. How are you preparing for what could turn into a deluge of money and a nasty race?

JOE TEIRAB: Yeah, look, I think we just need to keep the main thing the main thing, and that's really the people. And we need to put people over politics. And right now, this is not happening in Washington. And sadly, that's not what Angie Craig has delivered. Right now, again, we have a terrible Biden-Harris agenda that's brought us high prices at the gas pump and at the grocery store.

We have people pouring through the border, crimes being committed by people who shouldn't even be in this country. And we have people who want to charge cops more than criminals. And so I'm going to stand on the side of law enforcement, and I'm going to make sure that we just focus on those issues that people care about.

CATHY WURZER: Again, as Brian said, it could get pretty tough. Are you prepared for that?

JOE TEIRAB: I'm definitely prepared. Look, I was proud to serve in the Marine Corps for five years on active duty, deployed once to Iraq. And as a lawyer, I didn't kick down any doors, but my job was to give up or down guidance on our strikes against ISIS. My job as a federal prosecutor was to go against some of the worst criminals that we have in our state and put them behind bars. So I'm ready for that fight.

CATHY WURZER: So as you know, there's a lot of enthusiasm and energy around the Harris-Walz ticket. And the President's trying to get his regain his footing a little bit after Joe Biden dropped out of the race. And I'm wondering, how much do you think that your fortunes, your political fortunes, are kind of tied to how the top of the ticket is performing in Minnesota?

JOE TEIRAB: Yeah, I can only control what I can control. And I know that, right now, the Harris-Walz ticket is a little bit on a sugar high. I think they're going to end up coming back down to the ground because I think people are going to say, hey, look, wait, what was my life like back four years ago when President Trump was in office? And what's life like now? And so I think once people come to that realization, they're going to realize that, hey, I think we want to go a different direction. And I'm proud to be on the ballot and fighting for everyday Minnesotans.

BRIAN BAKST: Angie Craig said in her statement last night on the primary results that she looks forward to seeing you on the debate stage. Do you plan on doing one, two, how many debates?

JOE TEIRAB: I'll do as many debates as Angie Craig wants to do. And it was honestly a lot of fun to be on a forum stage with her at Farmfest last week. And I called out the fact that she says that she's bipartisan, but the proof isn't in the pudding. She voted against a bipartisan farm bill. She voted against a bill that just would have said, hey, look, only American citizens should vote. And she voted against that bipartisan bill. So I'm excited to make the record clear that she is not bipartisan. And I think Minnesotans deserve better.

BRIAN BAKST: We hope you'll do one of those debates here on MPR News.

JOE TEIRAB: I'd be glad to do it, Brian.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, we'll host one. That'll be great. All right.

JOE TEIRAB: Awesome. Yeah, looking forward to it.

CATHY WURZER: All right, thank you. We appreciate your time.

JOE TEIRAB: Thank you so much, Cathy and Brian. Appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Joe Teirab is the Republican nominee challenging DFL Representative Angie Craig for the second congressional district seat in November.