Jen Schultz

Pete Stauber

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REGIONAL- The national fervor surrounding the presidential election has trickled down into the Eighth Congressional District race between Republican incumbent Pete Stauber and Democraic challenger Jen Shultz, with both encountering enthusiastic crowds as they barnstorm their way around the district in search of votes.
The Timberjay caught up with Schultz between stops on Monday to find out how her campaign has been going.
“We’re in Bemidji right now, and we’re headed to Red Lake today,” Schultz said. “We’ve been so surprised at how many people show up in little towns like Mora, like 50 people. In Deerwood we had a ton of people show up, 60 people. These are tiny little communities.”
Schultz has set a frenetic pace in her second attempt to unseat Stauber. She’s logged more than 70,000 miles seeking out the concerns of district voters, she’s hosted over 50 meet and greets and marched in 34 parades. Her campaign has sent over 30,000 postcards and knocked on thousands of doors with hundreds of volunteers, she said.
“We’ve had over 2,000 people sign up to volunteer just for our campaign,” Schultz said. “It’s pretty amazing that there’s a huge grassroots movement in the district.”
Schultz said that she saw a boost in fundraising and volunteers when Kamala Harris became the party’s presidential nominee and Tim Walz was selected for vice-president but noted that she’d already had a strong response before that.
“People were so motivated to unseat Pete,” Schultz said. “More people want to door knock for everybody on the ticket. Now they’re excited about Tim Walz, too, to have one of our own as VP.”
Affordable housing, affordable and accessible child care, and lower healthcare costs are recurring themes Schultz has heard from voters, she said.
“Also, there’s a lot of veterans and folks who are dependent on Medicare and Social Security in our district, so those programs are important to protect and strengthen,” Schultz said. “They’re very worried about reproductive rights, and frankly, our democracy. They’re worried about what will happen the day after the election, and honestly, they’re worried that if Republicans are in control of the U.S. House, they won’t certify the election in January. My opponent still doesn’t admit that Biden is our president. So, I don’t have a lot of faith that he’s going to certify the election if he has the opportunity.”
If there’s been one frustration for Schultz, it’s the lack of attention the Eighth District race has gotten from the state’s major media outlets. With election prognosticators like the Cook Political Report projecting the Eighth as “solidly Republican,” Schutlz believes the media has overlooked the level of support her campaign is getting.
“We’ve raised $1.2 million on our own,” she said. “These are individual folks, some union donations, but no PACs, no national party. We are doing it on our own and that’s how motivated people are. We have just not been getting the press coverage on this race. We got 43 percent of the vote last time in 2022 just running for a few months. I need seven points to win, and that is completely doable when people are so upset with Stauber.”
Schultz hands out her cellphone number everywhere she goes to be readily accessible to voters, and she said she recently heard from a Republican.
“He has only voted Democrat once, but he’s unhappy with Stauber and he wanted to ask me questions about the national debt,” Schultz said. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to vote for me. There are a lot of Republicans and independents upset with Stauber, and I wish the press would cover it. But they think that this is really a Trump district and that I don’t have a shot, so they’re contributing to the status quo. If they don’t cover it, I have less of a chance to flip it. But me and my mighty team are doing everything we can to win.”
The Timberjay also reached out to the Stauber campaign, and while no one from the campaign was available for an interview, Stauber sent the following statement:
“From campaign rallies to public forums to door knocking households across the Eighth Congressional District this summer and fall, I visit with Minnesota voters every day who are fed up with an economy that is killing the American dream for working families and a Biden-Harris administration that is an abject failure on every front,” Stauber said. “From skyrocketing prices to an open southern border to chaos abroad, Minnesotans have had enough and we can turn the page on four years of the Biden-Harris disaster, if we vote.”
Tuesday debate
Media attention is a given when Stauber and Schultz face off for their only head-to-head debate
of the campaign on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 6:20 p.m. on WDIO-ABC. The 40-minute debate at the
station’s Duluth studio will be moderated by WDIO’s Baihly Warfield and Darren Danielson.
The debate will be broadcast live on WDIO and it will be streamed on wdio.com, the WDIO
YouTube channel and the WDIO Facebook page.