Republican voters in deep-red Alabama and in an open Minnesota House district will pick nominees Tuesday in primaries that are likely to decide who comes to Capitol Hill.
A special primary for the remainder of the late Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s term in Minnesota’s 1st District drew a crowded field on both sides of the aisle. The parties’ winners on Tuesday will face off in a special election Aug. 9 for the term that runs through January. That’s the same day as the rest of the primaries in the North Star State, including for the 1st District term that starts in January and runs to 2025.
On the Republican side, Brad Finstad, a former Agriculture Department appointee during the Trump administration; state Rep. Jeremy Munson; and Jennifer Carnahan, Hagedorn’s widow, have attracted the most attention in this week’s race. Former Hormel Foods CEO Jeffrey Ettinger, who won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party endorsement for the August primary for the full term, is running in the special primary on Tuesday as well. So is Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration who ran in a primary against Democratic Sen. Tina Smith in 2018.
