Brad Finstad won by 17 points in 2024. A Democratic poll now has him tied at 43%.

Republican Rep. Brad Finstad won reelection by 17 percentage points two years ago. With days left before the election, he is tied at 43% each with Democrat Jake Johnson, a high school math teacher, in a Democratic-sponsored poll.

The 1st District is the only Minnesota race that could help determine which party controls the U.S. House.

The district stretches the length of the state's southern border. 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.

WCCO's Esme Murphy traveled to the district to talk to both candidates. She found Finstad touring Faribault Woolen Mills. About an hour east, Johnson was with supporters in Red Wing.

Finstad's record shows him voting with President Trump 99% of the time. Asked whether that is going over well with voters, Finstad said he has not heard pushback on the campaign trail. It is "nothing that people in southern Minnesota are bringing up to me," he said.

Johnson said he does hear it. He pointed to the war, tariffs and cuts to health care, especially in rural areas. Those "should have been, in my opinion, an easy no," he said.

Johnson, a political newcomer, entered the race 18 months ago and has crisscrossed the district in a battered minivan featured in his commercials.

The setup may sound familiar. In 2006, Tim Walz, then a Mankato high school teacher, challenged a veteran Republican and won the seat. Now Johnson, a high school math teacher, is challenging a veteran Republican incumbent who has been linked to the policies of Mr. Trump. Johnson has distanced himself from the Walz comparison. He said he sees serious failures within the Trump administration.

Finstad, a fourth-generation farmer, continues to embrace his role as a Trump supporter. He said he is proud of his record, pointing to what he called the largest tax cut in the country's history, border security and his work as a leader on fraud legislation in Congress. "We are putting sanity back into our government," he said.

A Finstad win would also be a win for the Trump policies he supports. A Johnson upset would be evidence that a blue wave has breached Minnesota.