Rep. Tim Walz (D)

The congressman from the 1st District is Tim Walz, a Democrat elected in one of the biggest upsets of 2006. Walz grew up in Nebraska and joined the Army National Guard when he was 17. When he retired from the military 24 years later, in 2005, he held the rank of command sergeant major. Walz earned his teaching degree in Nebraska, taught school in China for a year through a Harvard University program, and later established an educational travel company that helped high school students study in China. He and his wife moved to Minnesota in 1996 to take teaching jobs in Mankato. There he taught high school geography and coached the high school football team to two state championships.

Walz got into politics relatively late in life—he was 42 when he ran for Congress. In 2004, Bush made an appearance in the area as part of his re-election campaign. Walz took two students to the event, where campaign staffers demanded to know whether he supported the president and barred the students from entering after discovering one of them had a sticker for Bush’s Democratic opponent, John Kerry, on his wallet. Walz suggested that it might be bad PR for the Bush campaign to arrest an Army veteran, and he and the students were allowed in. But the campaign kept a close eye on them. Walz said the experience sparked his interest in politics, first as a volunteer for the Kerry campaign and then as a congressional candidate in 2006. “I don’t know if I’d necessarily call it an epiphany, but it was definitely one of those things that pushed me into that,” Walz said.

Walz challenged six-term Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht, an affable conservative who won re-election in 2004 with 60%, 9 points better than Bush. The district had sent Republicans to Washington for 100 of the previous 114 years, and Gutknecht was not considered especially vulnerable in 2006. Walz was not a polished campaigner. His speaking style was didactic compared to the ease with which Gutknecht, a former auctioneer, handled a crowd. But Walz decried declining middle-class wages, tax cuts for the wealthy and Congress’s failure to hold Bush accountable on the Iraq War. He ran as a political outsider and painted Gutknecht as too closely tied to Bush.

By October, Republicans began to take the threat against Gutknecht seriously. Walz had raised $870,000 by then, keeping pace with Gutknecht, who had raised $1.2 million. Walz enjoyed independent support from VoteVets, a Democratic-oriented group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and labor support from AFSCME, the large public-employees union. National Democrats ran ads that criticized Gutknecht for votes against increasing military benefits while raising his own pay. Gutknecht sought to halt his slide by characterizing Walz as a liberal who was out of sync with this socially conservative district. Walz’s support for abortion rights and his opposition to a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage fell outside district norms, but his opposition to gun control was compatible with them. His military experience and football coaching gave an aura of authenticity to his campaign that made it harder to attack. On Election Day, Walz defeated Gutknecht 53%-47%. Walz carried Democratic areas around Mankato and Austin and won Rochester’s Olmsted County by more than 1,800 votes (52%-48%). He became the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress.

Arriving in the House, Walz was chosen by his peers to split the freshman-class presidency with Rep. Paul Hodes, a New Hampshire Democrat. Walz established a mostly centrist voting record. He voted against President Bush’s troop “surge” in Iraq, but he opposed Democratic proposals to set a deadline for withdrawal. He backed improved security to control illegal immigration, but voted against building a fence along the border with Mexico. With a seat on the Agriculture Committee, Walz secured increased access to credit and conservation opportunities for farmers in the 2008 farm bill. His district had been among the leading recipients of federal largesse through the farm program. On another local issue, Walz lobbied to have a high-speed train route from the Twin Cities to Chicago go through Rochester. The train had been proposed by Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who wanted it to follow a route down the Mississippi River.

Walz was initially a top target for Republicans in the 2008 election. But the party’s preferred contenders decided not to run. National Republicans turned their focus to keeping their existing seats. Walz breezed to a 63%-33% victory, winning in all of his district’s counties.