State Rep. Dan Wolgamott says his campaign has knocked on 25,000 doors this election season. Among the people who answered, some already knew him, with plans to vote for him on Nov. 5, while others were more hesitant — and planned to vote for a candidate from a different party.
On Sunday, he and his fiancee knocked on doors in an area that he said typically has a relatively low contact rate of 5%-10%, meaning that of all the doors they knock on, only that percentage results in someone opening the door and having a conversation.
“I think this is the fourth time that our campaign has made it through this particular neighborhood this cycle. It’s like fishing. You just got to keep casting out that line,” he said. “It’s like mining for diamonds. You got to get out there. And that’s why we get out and we make so many passes through it, so we can have our best chances in finding folks.”
The DFL Party in Minnesota currently has a trifecta, with control of the governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature. This MinnPost analysis determined that there are 14 contested seats across the state that the DFL and GOP are eyeing, two of which are in the St. Cloud area: Wolgamott’s seat in District 14B and the other in neighboring District 14A held by Bernie Perryman, a Republican incumbent.
What would it take?
All 134 House seats are on the ballot in November. Currently, Republicans hold 63 seats while Democrats hold 68 after several recent resignations, meaning this region of central Minnesota — home to one of the state’s largest Greater Minnesota cities, as well as stretches of remote farm country, several colleges and a strong Catholic tradition — could be one of the keys to a change in power.
Wolgamott has won the 14B seat three times. The district, which covers some of St. Cloud, Sauk Rapids and surrounding townships, tends to vote Democratic only by a small margin, which has narrowed since 2018. This year, with some shifts in redistricting and voter priorities and opinions, Republicans could have a chance to take the seat.
His opponent, Sue Ek, is running on a very different platform than his. Ek made a run for the House in 2005 but was removed from the ballot after the state Supreme Court found she didn’t meet residency qualifications. Since then, she has served as campaign manager for King Banaian (a former House member), been a state GOP delegate and gotten elected to the State Central Committee.
Ek’s platform includes reducing government restrictions on businesses, increasing parental say in the education of their children, reforming K-12 teacher licensing and stopping Minnesota from being a sanctuary state for undocumented immigrants.
Credit: Michael Nolan/MinnPost
Despite changes in redistricting, which have made this race tighter than in prior years, and some personal challenges Wolgamott faced during his term, state Sen. Aric Putnam thinks Wolgamott will get reelected because Ek’s ideology is further to the right than that of prior challengers. Last September, Wolgamott pled guilty to operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration above .08, after getting pulled over and cited in July.
“I think the (14)B side is pretty safe right now,” he said. “Wolgamott’s had some challenges, and he’s an imperfect candidate like everybody is, but I still think that it’s a pretty safe seat.”
In 2005, Ek ran on an anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage platform. In an interview recently with the St. Cloud Times, she said that she will listen to voters who say they want abortion access and will provide resources for pregnant women who might want to keep their baby. When asked by the Times if she would protect abortion rights if there was a Republican-led effort to repeal the state’s codification of abortion access, she said she couldn’t promise that.
As to why she’s running, she said: “We needed somebody who was a clear difference between Wolgamott… Philosophically, we are very different. ”
But Wolgamott and Ek do have one thing in common: They both recognize that to win this election, they need to find and motivate voters who are undecided or don’t want to vote — and billboards aren’t enough to do that.
Getting out to neighborhoods
Ek said that earlier in the campaign, she and two staffers door knocked five days a week for eight hours each day. Getting out and talking to folks is critical, she said, referencing a candidate in the St. Cloud mayoral primary who has several billboards and finished second to last.
“It was a good lesson for those of us running that billboards aren’t always that effective,” she told MinnPost. That’s a perspective that Wolgamott and the DFL candidate, Abdi Daisane, who’s challenging Perryman in 14A, shared with Ek.
What people want out of their representatives varied from house to house, with some people strongly motivated based on what’s happening nationally and others more concerned about things on the local level, like policing.
Ek, who doorknocked on Sunday, talked with some people who were fed up with Democratic control but didn’t necessarily subscribe to the Republican Party, either. Beverly Menning felt “pro-life values” weren’t being represented in the Legislature and that the Republican Party is “wishy-washy” on the issue.
“What’s really hard in Minnesota — there’s such a huge population in the Twin Cities that it overrides what the Greater Minnesota people want,” Menning said.
Others, like Douglas Rieck, a Democrat, felt strongly about unions and was proud to support Wolgamott, telling Ek: “I believe Wolgamott works across the aisle, and I think that’s so important because there’s so much discourse in politics now. You can’t even get along anymore. This country is built on greatness about America as one people, not a system of us against them. That to me, is important.”
Sue Ek spoke with Douglas Rieck, a Democrat, while door knocking on Sunday. Credit: MinnPost photo by Bill KelleyNarrowing races
While the 14A race has been close in previous elections, Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, said it could be especially competitive this year. Putnam ran in that district in 2016 and 2018 and lost both years.
The district, which covers about half of St. Cloud and the cities of St. Joseph and St. Augusta, has voted Republican for more than a decade. The margin of the wins, however, has been narrowing.
When Putnam ran in 2018, he lost with just under 48% of the vote, while DFLers in previous years had closer to 45% of the vote. “People were treating us like we just led a revolution because you just weren’t supposed to do that well there as a Democrat,” he said.
Since then, it’s changed even more after redistricting in 2020 added a more densely populated area of St. Joseph, home to the College of Saint Benedict, to the district and removed Haven Township, which tended to vote more Republican.
In the last election, DFL candidate Tami Calhoun lost to Perryman by 199 votes. Putnam thinks that signals a change within the district and is a good sign for Daisane’s chances this year.
Perryman, the incumbent, thinks people on both sides of the aisle are more energized to vote in this election than in 2022, partly because there’s more on the ticket but also because the people she’s spoken with are frustrated with some of the spending that took place during Democratic control from the past two years.
She is concerned about policies passed during the last two years, like the impact of paid family medical leave on businesses in her community.
“I just know what I’m doing is right, because I saw what happened (during) the two years in the session. So bringing the House back? Do I want that? Yes, because it’ll just bring balance,” Perryman said.
State Rep. Bernie Perryman thinks people on both sides of the aisle are more energized to vote in this election than in 2022. Credit: MinnPost photo by Ava Kian
She also acknowledged how close the last race was and pointed out the impact people getting out to vote would make in this particular race. Her campaign has knocked on about 6,000 doors, she said.
Daisane thinks 200 votes (roughly the number of votes that Perryman won by in 2022) will make all the difference. He said his campaign has knocked on 15,000 doors so far and ran through some neighborhoods multiple times.
“The turnout will determine if we’re going to get that 200. We need to have a good turnout to win the election,” he said. “If we are able to bring people out, especially new voters, then we are able to win. That’s what we weren’t able to 100% do last election.”
Daisane believes his background as a Somali immigrant is a big draw because he has connections within the region’s sizable Somali community and has been able to mobilize people who did not vote in the last election.
He said he’s also connecting with independent-minded voters, trying to steer away from being constricted by a party. He has knocked on doors in St. Augusta, a more conservative town of 3,500 south of St. Cloud, and held a meeting with people he had met while door knocking.
“I want to be there so everyone has a chance to get to know me and talk to me. I don’t really care if they’re conservative or not,” he said. “I think if we are able to talk and have a conversation, I can tell them that I will be someone who would be able to push issues that will be important to them. I want to be working for the people. Because what I have gained being in this county, (the) party didn’t necessarily give it to me. It was the American people.”
Drawing in voters
As Ek door knocked around Minden Township, just east of downtown St. Cloud, she connected with people about what they wanted from a state representative.
She was joined by a volunteer who drove as she went door-to-door, asking, “Can you give me one idea that you have so I can make government better?”
By the end of some conversations, she had people who weren’t interested in voting considering if they would go cast a ballot or she’d get them talking about why they feel passionately about one issue or another.
Ek also talked with some people who were frustrated with the state of politics, like Ann Muff, who, when approached by Ek, said she doesn’t vote. Muff has been a St. Cloud resident since 1982 and remembered the excitement of voting in her first election at the age of 19.
There was a Trump sign on her lawn, which, she explained to Ek, reflects who her husband supports.
“I just don’t believe in anything that’s going on right now. I think everybody’s mean,” she said. “I don’t think George Bush was mean, I don’t think Clinton was mean, I don’t even think Obama was mean.”
14A DFL candidate, Abdi Daisane, lower left, posing with supporters prior to door knocking on Sunday. Credit: MinnPost photo by Ava Kian
Muff said she’s concerned about border safety and wants people coming into the country to be vetted. “I don’t like people not vetted, coming over here and then giving them benefits. I mean, I work hard for my money,” she said. “It just does not seem fair that all this money is being doled out.”
She also expressed disapproval of some statewide policies, like driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, which Ek pointed out Wolgamott voted for.
But at the same time, Muff was happy that Wolgamott advocated for rail service from the Twin Cities to St. Cloud. In 2023, he helped secure $4 million to assess the possible extension of the Northstar Commuter rail to St. Cloud.
“He was really instrumental in trying to get that going,” she said. “I thought it was a great idea.”
In some of these conversations, Ek mentioned legislative balance and the bills that have passed under the DFL control.
As Wolgamott walked around canvassing, people in the neighborhood had varied views, too. One woman, Keshia Anderson-King, has known Wolgamott since his earlier days as their representative.
She said St. Cloud is struggling with policing and she wants the community and police to rebuild the relationship they used to have. Wolgamott is endorsed by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association and has worked on bills that brought over $3 million each to the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office and the St. Cloud Police Department.
Another woman, Elaine Place, stood and talked to Wolgamott and his fiancee from the screen of her door. She was concerned with national politics and some of the things that the Republican Party wants to restrict, specifically regarding LGBTQ communities and abortion rights.
When Daisane went doorknocking, he talked with people who voted more on party lines. The incumbent in his race, Perryman, supports GOP candidate and former President Donald Trump and gave a speech at Trump’s St. Cloud rally this summer.
Bernie Wager, a St. Cloud resident who described himself as a little left of center — fiscally more conservative but socially liberal — was happy to see that someone was challenging Perryman because of her ties to Trump.
“I would not vote for (Perryman),” he said. “If she has any connection, any propensity to be like Donald Trump, absolutely not. I don’t care how bad the (other) candidate is, I would not vote for her simply because of that.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-11 05:18:00
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