Minnesota's 1st Congressional District race remains a toss-up, CBS News reports
Minnesota's 1st Congressional District remains a toss-up Wednesday morning, with incumbent Republican Rep. Brad Finstad facing Democratic challenger Jake Johnson, CBS News projects.
As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, Johnson holds a slim lead of just over 300 votes over Finstad -- 50% and 49.9% respectively. Minnesota does a publicly funded recount for races with less than a quarter of a point difference.
Despite the impending recount, Johnson declared victory early Wednesday morning.
"When we started this campaign a year and a half ago, the pundits ran the numbers and they said we had no shot. But the people of southern Minnesota didn't care about those pundits. We showed up and built something nobody thought was possible," Johnson said in a release. "I'm endlessly grateful to my wife Molly and our four boys, my team, and the thousands of volunteers, donors, and neighbors in all 21 counties who made this happen. Now I'm ready to get to work bringing down costs, taking on corruption, and investing in small towns across southern Minnesota. Whether you voted for me or not, I work for you now."
Johnson, a Rochester high school math teacher, secured 81% of the vote in the August primary against Alex Eaton. According to his campaign website, Johnson grew up in the southern Minnesota community of Stewartville and went to college at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Finstad has served as representative since 2022, when he won a special election to serve out the remaining term of the late Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died of cancer earlier that year.
The 1st Congressional District stretches across southern Minnesota from the western border with Wisconsin to the eastern border with South Dakota. It is anchored by Rochester and the Mayo Clinic in the east and by hog farms and pork producers in the west, with farmland and countryside in between
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz represented the district from 2007 until he became governor in 2019.
Finstad was previously a farmer and served as an area director for the Minnesota Farm Bureau.
