A quiet ‘Minnesota nice’ contest for a coveted open congressional seat in a year of ‘bare-knuckled’ politics

WASHINGTON — An open congressional seat is a rarity in politics and usually results in bitter, highly competitive races because it’s the best way to win a seat in Congress.

But the Minnesota 3rd Congressional District race between state Sen. Kelly Morrison, a Democrat, and Tad Jude, a former judge and Republican state legislator, is bucking that trend.

Two-thirds of members of Congress enter the U.S. House through an open seat, like the one vacated by Rep. Dean Phillips, the Democrat who currently represents the 3^rd. Phillips decided against re-election after his failed bid to challenge President Biden.

Yet the race for the 3rd has been decidedly low-keyed. There have been no attack ads – or ads of any kind – on television, at least not yet, no mudslinging and no involvement by the national parties or outside groups in this contest. That’s especially unique in a year of mean-spirited, bare-knuckled hyper-partisanship.

The 3rd District race is characterized by civility, house parties, boots-on-the-ground campaigning and a lot of door-knocking. Morrison said there’s “less mudslinging and more talk about policy solutions” in the race. Jude, 72, said the toughest competition is the “sign war,” with the rival campaigns vying to put up the most yard signs and keeping them up.

An open seat usually provokes much fiercer fighting, said Hamline University political science professor David Schultz.

“Open congressional seats are really scarce,” he said. He called the comparatively quiet nature of the races “an anomaly.”

That may be because the voting pattern has shifted so much in the 3rd Congressional District, which was once represented for decades by a Republican and is now considered “solid Democrat” by the Cook Political Report and other analysts.

Both candidates have experience running for public office, and both say they adhere to the moderate wing of their respective parties.

“There is a long tradition of having moderate, bipartisan legislators in this seat,” said Morrison, who touts her bipartisan work in the state legislature.

Meanwhile, Jude, who lives in Maple Grove, said he would join the centrist and bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus if elected to Congress.

Phillips is a member of that caucus of moderate Democrats and Republicans. When elected in 2018, Phillips defeated six-term Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen, who sometimes broke with his party and kept his distance from Donald Trump.

But by the time Paulsen lost his seat, the 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses the suburbs north, west and south of Minneapolis, had for some time been drifting toward the Democratic Party.

In 2012, the district went narrowly for Barack Obama. In 2016, it went by a much larger margin for Hillary Clinton, and in 2020, by an even larger margin for Joe Biden.

“What a lot of Republicans are concluding now is that this is a Democratic district and basically they are conceding,” Schultz said.

Abortion rights at center of the race

While both tout their moderation, there are sharp differences between the candidates.

Morrison, 55, who lives in Deephaven with her husband and two children, is a gynecologist-obstetrician who hopes her pro-choice message resonates in the suburban 3rd District. She said she decided to trade medicine for politics when Trump was elected in 2016, and she was concerned about the “divisiveness” of his politics.

After Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a critic of Roe v. Wade, to the U.S. Supreme Court, Morrison reacted again, co-founding the Reproductive Rights Caucus in the state legislature. She said she was ready to do battle when the Supreme Court overturned Roe two years ago with its Dobbs v. Jackson decision.

Morrison said her “particular skill set” as an OB-GYN who supports reproductive rights “kind of fits the ethics of the 3rd District,” which is home to many higher-income households and where slightly more than half of its adult residents have bachelor’s or advanced degrees.

She said she admires Phillips and his optimistic ethics of “radical hospitality.”  She’s known Phillips for decades, having been in his class at The Blake School, a private preparatory high school in Minneapolis. While Morrison said although Phillips is pro choice, the struggle for abortion rights “isn’t his focus.”

Jude, meanwhile, supports former president Trump and the Supreme Court’s Dobb decision, which allowed individual states to set their own abortion policy. Since the decision was handed down, 14 states have enacted near-total abortion bans, while four states – Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Iowa – have banned abortion past roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

Another big difference is in their campaign fundraising. Morrison has raised nearly $1.4 million, and Jude about $163,000.

A lawyer with a long career in public service, Jude was the youngest candidate when, at 20 years old, he won a seat in the Minnesota House in 1972. He has also served as a state senator, a Hennepin County commissioner and a district court judge. 

“I enjoy public service, but I really enjoy solving problems,” he said.

One example he gave was his successful effort to derail proposed landfills in Hennepin County as a county commissioner, “which saved our air and water quality.”

Jude said he would take his problem-solving skills to Congress and focus on reining in government spending and undocumented migration, as well as legislation that would limit the authority of the White House and federal agencies.

“You should have policies created by elected representatives, not bureaucrats,” he said.

As far as the “Walz factor,” Jude shrugged off the impact of having the governor at the top of the ballot.

“The highly educated voters of the 3rd District are more likely than others to split their ticket,” he said.

Schultz, however, said the presence of Walz, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Amy Klobuchar on the ballot will help Democrats like Morrison because it will get the Democratic vote out and win over independents.

“This is the best ticket for Democrats right now,” he said.

Editor’s note: Ana Radelat wrote this story for MinnPost.com. Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C., correspondent. 

This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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