MN-07: Peterson Moves from Lean Democratic to Toss Up
Despite sitting in a heavily Republican Minnesota seat, House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson escaped without serious GOP challengers in both 2016 and 2018. But that won't be the case this cycle: on Tuesday, former Republican Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach announced she would run against the 15-term incumbent in 2020, and her entry moves MN-07 from Lean Democratic to Toss Up.
In an era defined by sky-high polarization and straight-ticket voting, Peterson is an extreme outlier. No one else in the House represents a seat where the opposite party's presidential candidate received more than 55 percent of the vote in 2016, but Peterson - first elected in 1990 - has managed to defy political gravity a sprawling, rural district that voted for President Trump by a landslide 61 percent to 31 percent.
The reason? Peterson, 75, is serving his second stint as chair of the Ag Committee, where his policy expertise is widely respected across the aisle and his farm bill-crafting clout is prized by farmers in his sugar beet and corn-rich district. Moreover, his personal style - including flying his own plane around the sprawling district and showing up to events unstaffed in jeans and cowboy boots - holds undeniable local appeal.
Despite his close working relationship with Nancy Pelosi, the blunt-talking Peterson has also never been regarded as an ideologue back home: he's the last founding member of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition still serving, and he's long taken pride in never receiving a perfect score from any interest group. In 2016, he mildly endorsed Bernie Sanders and then disclosed that he couldn't bring himself to vote for Hillary Clinton.
In fact, just last month, Peterson hosted Trump-appointed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for a bipartisan discussion at the iconic Minnesota Farmfest at a time when China's retaliation against Trump's trade tariffs is putting serious stress on district farmers.
https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/house/minnesota-house/mn-07-peterson-moves-lean-democratic-toss