Meet Trina Swanson, candidate for U.S. House in Minnesota's 8th District | WCCO Election Guide
Trina Swanson, the DFL nominee in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, is a former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official. The district covers Duluth and the Iron Range.
Watch her 60-second video pitch and read how she'd tackle Minnesota's top issues, from the national debt and health care to immigration, the economy and fraud.
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The federal government is running significant annual deficits. What specific federal spending would you cut or protect, and what tax changes, if any, would you support to address the national debt?
Minnesota pays more in taxes to the federal government than it receives back in funding. Our current administration is focused more on rewarding the 1% with tax breaks than supporting our middle class. When I am elected to Congress, I will bring resources back to Minnesota by supporting a more equitable tax code that makes the wealthiest among us pay their fair share by taxing billionaires' wealth similarly to our income taxes, closing corporate loopholes, and focusing tax relief on our working families and small businesses.
What changes would you support to federal health care policy, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid?
I believe every American deserves access to quality, affordable health care, and I am committed to fighting for universal coverage when elected to Congress. We must protect and expand Medicare and Medicaid, extend Affordable Care Act premium assistance, expand the authority to negotiate prescription drug prices, and confront health care consolidation that reduces competition and drives up costs.
In rural communities, access is just as important as affordability. We need to increase Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates for rural hospitals and health care providers, expand the health care workforce, and use telehealth where it can meaningfully improve access to care.
What immigration policies would you support at the federal level, including border security measures and any pathway to legal status for people currently in the country without authorization?
Our immigration system is broken, and after 20 years as a public servant working in immigration and as an immigration lawyer, I know we need both secure borders and a system that is lawful, humane, and efficient. I support more personnel and technology at the border, stronger enforcement against smugglers and traffickers, reforming and streamlining legal immigration pathways, and a path to legal status for long-term undocumented residents who follow the law. Congress needs to stop using immigration as a political weapon and finally fix the system.
What would you do in Congress to support jobs and economic growth in Minnesota, including your position on tariffs and international trade agreements?
Minnesota voters are demanding solutions to the challenges that shape their day-to-day lives: affordability, healthcare access, and economic opportunity. Families want a state where they can afford to live, get the healthcare they need, find childcare that is available and accessible, support key industries that keep communities strong, and protect our outdoor resources for generations to come.
Inflation has hit rural communities across MN-08 especially hard, squeezing already thin margins for farmers, families, and rural businesses. Farm profitability is being undercut by rising costs, exacerbated by the recent tariffs on critical equipment and supplies. The Trump administration has decimated the bottom-line of farmers across the region, disrupted markets for soybean farmers and raised input costs, including fertilizer that depends on supply chains running through the Strait of Hormuz. We must have an economic strategy that supports our rural businesses, not hinders them.
Minnesota has been at the center of some of the largest public-program fraud cases in the country in recent years. What would you do in Congress to strengthen oversight and prevent this kind of fraud in the future?
Anyone who defrauds the public must be held accountable, consistently, not only when it is politically convenient. Every dollar lost to fraud should be pursued wherever it occurs and regardless of who is responsible.
Taxpayer dollars must reach the people and purposes Congress intended. I will strengthen transparency and oversight of public spending, improve early detection of fraud, and hold agencies accountable for correcting known weaknesses before fraud occurs, not years after the damage is done. I will also push for proper staffing and funding of the Inspectors General system that has been gutted under the Trump Administration.