Cows, colleges and competitive districts: DFL, GOP eye key House seats covering Northfield and St. Peter

An unexpected visitor stopped by Rep. Kristi Pursell’s campaign event in August: her challenger in the state House District 58A race. 

It was an open house, after all, and Steve Cherney came to say hello. This happened outside a Lonsdale barbecue joint called Smoke, but nothing about their brief chat was heated. 

Cherney, a Republican, said he vowed not to besmirch the DFL incumbent, a commitment he doubled down on in an interview last week. 

“I’d like to get back to basics, that we’re all trying to do the best we can for each other,” he said. “Maybe I’m pollyannaish in that respect.”

For her part, Pursell wasn’t taken aback by the encounter. More difficult conversations are part and parcel of representing a district spanning the political spectrum.

“Being in a district where I live in the blue dot (Northfield) and the rest of the district is a sea of red, I have to show up,” said the Democratic incumbent. “And I had better, because that’s literally the job, is to have hard conversations.”

District 58A shares characteristics with another in southern Minnesota, 18A. Each place encompasses college towns in Northfield and St. Peter abutted by rivers and farm fields. Both had competitive state House races in 2024. 

But Pursell and Cherney’s meet-up highlighted a difference between this year’s races. An interaction like that isn’t likely to happen in 18A, where an elusive representative is looking to snap a losing streak by incumbents.

A low profile

Rep. Erica Schwartz, a Republican, won 18A by just about 800 votes in 2024. Her win was the third straight election to flip party control in the district.

She represents a district covering Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, her hometown of Nicollet, North Mankato, rural Nicollet County and a sliver of Le Sueur County. Schwartz’s DFL opponent, Leah Hanson of North Mankato, alleges her representation is quiet and unresponsive. 

Hanson compared Schwartz’s apparent lack of visibility to a lawmaker on the federal level, U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, who constituents have criticized for a lack of public events.

“Rep. Schwartz has not taken a lot of opportunities to meet with the public. She has not held town halls. She has not engaged with the media,” Hanson said. “I think our elected officials should be transparent, accountable and responsive to constituents. That’s a lot of what pushed me into deciding to run.” 

Related: Here are the races that will likely determine party control at the Minnesota Legislature

Schwartz did nothing to dispel Hanson’s point. She didn’t respond to MinnPost’s multiple requests for an interview starting in August. 

Turning to her Facebook page, a place where a candidate could curate an image of constituent outreach, she highlighted events in Mankato, New Ulm and Le Center over the last month. None of those cities are in her district. 

Her YouTube page, meanwhile, is a testament to brevity. The longest video of her speaking is 45 seconds long. A 2026 legislative recap video lasts 28 seconds. In it, she talks about “supporting our farmers, delivering tax relief for Minnesotans, and strengthening fraud prevention and accountability.”

On her campaign website, constituents can learn she works for her husband’s family business, the Nicollet Mart. Her top listed issues are education, inflation and public safety. 

A social worker helped by social programs

Hanson grew up on a hobby farm in Kasota just across the Minnesota River from St. Peter. As a social worker at Connections Shelter in Mankato, she said working with people experiencing homelessness puts housing high on her policy priorities.

“We need to invest in housing volume,” she said. “That means we need to build homes without unnecessary bureaucracy getting in the way.”

Health care access and protection of social programs are two of her other policy interests. Two clinics closed in the district in St. Peter and North Mankato after Congress passed Medicaid cuts last year. She supports raising payments made by insurance companies to hospitals and clinics, plus investing in a public health insurance option. 

Hanson uses a wheelchair for mobility. At age 23, a car crash left her paralyzed.

“It was an opportunity for my community to invest in me directly through friends and neighbors supporting me, but also getting connected to resources that helped me get back to work and meaningfully get involved in my community,” she said.

After her community and state invested in her, she said she wants to protect those opportunities for others. Hanson named Medical Assistance for Employed Persons with Disabilities and vocational rehab services as programs that help her and other Minnesotans with disabilities live full lives.

The college town conundrum

More than in most districts, candidates in 18A and 58A would do well to court college students. Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and Northfield’s Carleton College and St. Olaf College draw young voters into the districts every election cycle.

High student voter turnout is a point of pride on each campus. St. Olaf has even topped the state and nation in it. 

A huge team of voting ambassadors help make it happen, said Chris Chapp, a political science professor at the college. 

These students set out to get out the vote in peer groups, like an athletic team, music ensemble or club. They pass along nonpartisan information about how, where and when to register, then follow up ahead of the election.

Face-to-face engagement is most effective, Chapp said. The goal is to make regular voters out of students.

“This is part of creating habits of lifelong civic engagement, which is a great thing that we want for all of our students,” he said. 

Related: A Northfield farmer hopes to add a rare rural voice to the Minnesota Senate’s DFL caucus

Similar cultures about voting are in place at Carleton and Gustavus. Casting a ballot, whether in local districts or mailing it home, is part of the campus cultures.

To be clear, students don’t represent anywhere near a majority voting bloc in 58A or 18A. But the campus vote can tip tight margins one way or another. 

Generally, students are boons to Democratic candidates during election season, said Ryan Dawkins, a political science professor at Carleton, while presenting a challenge for Republican candidates.

“Students offer reservoirs of additional support and campaign volunteers,” he said.

It often translates to the polls. DFL candidates need worry more about how big their winning margins will be among students than whether they’ll have a winning margin. 

Off campus, the student influence on local races occasionally causes sour grapes. Dawkins called it the “town and gown” tension. Kate Knutson, a political science professor at Gustavus, said it’s amplified in rural areas.

“It’s very frustrating to them that an election can be won or lost on whether Gustavus students or St. Olaf students or Carleton students turn out to vote,” she said. 

In St. Peter, it was common for winning DFL candidates to have strong ties to Gustavus, Knutson said. As those direct ties loosened in more recent cycles, the district settled into being one of the swingiest swing districts in Minnesota. 

Another contributor to that was the rise of mail-in voting around 2020, Knutson said. 

“That’s when the students stopped voting primarily in St. Peter and started voting primarily by mail in their home communities,” she said.

Dorm knocking in Northfield

Pursell, a St. Olaf alum, is an example of a student who came to Northfield and built a life there after graduation. She helmed the Clean River Partners environmental nonprofit. 

Remaining engaged with the local campus communities, she goes “dorm knocking” during election season. For some students, Pursell might be the first politician they talk to and the first they vote for. 

She encounters her fair share of apathy in young people, though, as well.

“You know who is going to vote?” she asks those students in response. “Your grandparents. And that’s great, but if you want to have an equal voice and have equal footing, this is your chance.” 

College students and other constituents have common concerns, she finds. Affordable housing is feeling more unattainable for all of them. 

“I’m technically housing insecure because I pay more than one-third of my income for housing,” she said. “That blows people’s minds a little, but I hope it’s relatable because it is so many of us.” 

At the Legislature, she advocated for housing infrastructure funding in Greater Minnesota, passage of a transgender refuge bill, the prevention of Hennepin County Medical Center’s closure and a bonding bill for Lonsdale’s water infrastructure.

Her district, which also includes rural Rice County and part of New Prague in Scott County, hasn’t been as competitive as 18A. DFL candidates held Northfield’s district before her, and she continued the streak with winning margins of 9% in 2022 and 5% in 2024.

The Snoopy candidate

Cherney isn’t one to grumble about the prospect of college kids swinging the election. Despite knowing Northfield is tough terrain for him, he was out pounding signs in the ground there last week.

“I’m going to be Steve Cherney whether I’m representing Lonsdale folks or the folks at the colleges,” he said.

The retired AT&T state government affairs manager previously served on the Lonsdale and Burnsville city councils. In his interview with MinnPost, he came off as someone thoroughly enjoying this stage of his life. He concluded it by saying he tries to live like Snoopy, the good-natured Peanuts character. 

“I’m having a ball with this campaigning, staying happy about it, trying to lift people up on both sides,” he said.

He stepped up to run in the absence of a volunteer on the Republican side. Cherney told the Faribault Daily News it wouldn’t be right for the district to have an uncontested race.

He pitches himself to voters as a change agent. People watched property taxes rise, surpluses dwindle and fraud run wild in recent years, he said, so perhaps a wave of candidates like him could bring greater fiscal responsibility to the Capitol. 

Just don’t assume he’s pointing the finger at any one person, or party for that matter. Neither major party is perfect, he said. “If folks feel that maybe a change is appropriate, then I win the race if they come out and vote,” he said.

The post Cows, colleges and competitive districts: DFL, GOP eye key House seats covering Northfield and St. Peter  appeared first on MinnPost.

Originally reported by MinnPost by Brian Arola. Read the full story at the source.