The congresswoman for the 6th District is Michele Bachmann, a Republican first elected in 2006. Bachmann grew up in cities across the Midwest and attended Winona State University, where she met her husband while working on Democrat Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign. She became disillusioned with Carter and his party’s position on abortion rights and gravitated toward Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party in 1980. Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, both born-again Christians, moved to Tulsa, where she earned a degree at Coburn Law School at Oral Roberts University. After studying tax law at the College of William and Mary, Bachmann landed a job as a U.S. Treasury Department attorney in St. Paul, arguing criminal and civil tax cases. She and her husband raised five children and provided a home for 23 foster children. Bachmann’s political career began in 1999, with a losing bid for the Stillwater school board. A year later, she won a seat in the state Senate by defeating a moderate Republican incumbent in the primary. In 2002, she defeated a 10-year Democratic incumbent when redistricting put them in the same state Senate district. In the legislature, Bachmann sought to protect private property rights, limit government spending and cut taxes. She was a prominent abortion rights opponent and gained publicity in 2004 for leading an unsuccessful fight for a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Read More

The congresswoman for the 6th District is Michele Bachmann, a Republican first elected in 2006. Bachmann grew up in cities across the Midwest and attended Winona State University, where she met her husband while working on Democrat Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign. She became disillusioned with Carter and his party’s position on abortion rights and gravitated toward Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party in 1980. Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, both born-again Christians, moved to Tulsa, where she earned a degree at Coburn Law School at Oral Roberts University. After studying tax law at the College of William and Mary, Bachmann landed a job as a U.S. Treasury Department attorney in St. Paul, arguing criminal and civil tax cases. She and her husband raised five children and provided a home for 23 foster children. Bachmann’s political career began in 1999, with a losing bid for the Stillwater school board. A year later, she won a seat in the state Senate by defeating a moderate Republican incumbent in the primary. In 2002, she defeated a 10-year Democratic incumbent when redistricting put them in the same state Senate district. In the legislature, Bachmann sought to protect private property rights, limit government spending and cut taxes. She was a prominent abortion rights opponent and gained publicity in 2004 for leading an unsuccessful fight for a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

In 2006, 6th District Republican Mark Kennedy ran for the U.S. Senate. With support from cultural conservatives, Bachmann defeated three other candidates at the Republican nominating convention and no one challenged her in the primary. There were clear ideological differences between Bachmann and Democratic nominee Patty Wetterling, who became a nationally recognized advocate for missing children after her 11-year-old son, Jacob, was abducted in 1989 and never found. Wetterling’s support for abortion rights, her call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and her opposition to a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage prompted Republicans to portray her as too liberal for the district. President George W. Bush helped Bachmann raise money, and Wetterling got help from EMILY’s List.

Wetterling spent $3.2 million to Bachmann’s $2.7 million. Bachmann downplayed cultural issues and emphasized her opposition to taxes and led in the polls. Wetterling received a burst of positive publicity in October, when her background in child advocacy prompted Democrats to make her a spokesman during a scandal involving a Republican lawmaker’s sexual overtures to congressional pages. But Bachmann’s experience as a foster parent and her bill to establish a task force on Internet crimes against juveniles gave her credence as well. Polls showed Wetterling surging ahead after the scandal broke, but her lead was fleeting. In a difficult year for Republicans, Bachmann won a decisive 50%-42% victory.

In the House, Bachmann established a strongly conservative voting record and a reputation for sometimes controversial statements. In a 2008 appearance on MSNBC, she said that President Barack Obama “may have anti-American views” and suggested that the news media investigate all members of Congress to find who might be “anti-American.” Democrats accused her of McCarthyism, and $2 million flowed into the campaign of her Democratic challenger that year, Elwyn Tinklenberg. Bachmann responded, “I have strong views,” and charged that liberal bloggers perpetuated the story because they hate her. Conservative donors filled Bachmann’s coffers, and she outspent Tinklenberg $3.6 million to $2.5 million. She won 46%-43%, with 10% of the vote going to Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson.

In her second term, Bachmann emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of the Obama administration and the most identifiable leader in Congress of the tea party. She is a founder of the 50-member congressional Tea Party Caucus. “We are headed down the lane of economic Marxism,” she said on Sean Hannity’s talk radio program in March 2009. “It’s like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing.” She says she considers her role in Washington as that of “a foreign correspondent behind enemy lines.” To live up to her message, she stoutly refused to engage in earmarked spending for her district. Bachmann also got a spate of national attention when she told the Washington Times that she would report on her census form only the number of people in her household because, she said, that is all the Constitution requires.

But Bachmann has a tendency to jumble her facts, which has brought her less than desirable media scrutiny at times. During the swine flu scare in 2009, Bachmann seemed to suggest that the pandemic was the Democrats’ fault. She told the conservative Pajamas Media, “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter.” The 1970s flu outbreak happened during Republican Gerald Ford’s presidency. Bachmann also accused Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of accumulating a $100,000 “bar tab” flying on military aircraft, when in fact the figure was for all in-flight costs. Estimating air travel costs seems to be a particular weakness of Bachmann’s: She asserted that Obama’s trip to India would cost $200 million a day, a gross overestimate.

Nevertheless, Bachmann in just a short time became a wildly popular national figure among conservative and tea party voters. She often describes a vision of government shared by the tea party that limits government to a strict reading of its constitutional obligations. “This is insanity economics, insanity government,” she told a tea party rally outside the Capitol in November 2010. “And it’s not representative of who we are and this rich, beautiful legacy of 234 years.” She sponsored seminars at the Capitol for “studying and learning the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” to which she invited all House members. The first, in December 2010, featured Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Amid all this, Bachmann did some legislating. In 2009, she won amendments to the financial regulation overhaul that prohibit elected officials from receiving money from an entity they voted to create, and that bar organizations indicted for vote fraud from eligibility for housing counseling or legal assistance grants. Bachmann also successfully sponsored amendments to the Internet gambling bill that year, which revoked licenses of operators targeting ads to minors and barred fathers delinquent on child support payments from Internet gambling.

In 2010, she was again a magnet for Democratic activists, who funneled money into the district to help her opponent, DFL state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Bachmann raised $13.6 million, while Clark raised $4.7 million. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty campaigned for Bachmann, while Obama and former President Bill Clinton dropped into the district for Clark. Her opponent criticized Bachmann for her out-of-state travels and accused her of wanting to privatize Social Security, while Bachmann criticized Clark for voting to raise taxes on high income-earners and to increase the sales tax. Bachmann won 53%-40%, with 6% for the Independence Party’s Anderson, who ran again. It was a solid victory, but no higher than McCain’s 2008 showing in the district.

The political threat at home did little to discourage Bachmann’s pursuit of a higher profile and deeper involvement in national politics. In August 2010, she set up a leadership political action committee to raise money for other Republicans, and said she planned to endorse candidates in GOP primaries in 2012 the way that Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina did in the 2010 election. She also ran for chairman of the Republican Conference, the No. 4 post in the Republican majority leadership. But Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling bid for the post, too. Although the two of them had few differences on issues, Hensarling was endorsed by GOP Whip Eric Cantor, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and other top House Republicans—a sign that party leaders were wary of Bachmann’s penchant for sometimes hard-to-defend statements. Bachmann’s support came from conservative Steve King of Iowa, also known for the occasional incendiary remark, and the three Minnesota Republicans in the state’s House delegation. Bachmann withdrew from the race before the vote.

GOP Speaker-designate John Boehner appointed her to a seat on the Intelligence Committee, a plum assignment. But she opposed the Republicans’ tax cut deal with the Obama administration extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for two years, which was not a stance appreciated by the leadership.

In 2011, some Minnesota Republicans were urging Bachmann to challenge Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2012. But Bachmann set her sights higher. In June 2011, she announced her candidacy for president in 2012. Though she was initially viewed as an underdog, Bachmann’s presidential bid got off to a surprisingly fast start. With former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as the presumed frontrunner, tea party activists were hoping for a more conservative candidate to emerge as an alternative. Romney’s past support for abortion rights and government intervention on health care made him unacceptable to many conservative GOP voters. Bachmann’s tea party connection suddenly made her look like a viable candidate. And she won the Iowa straw poll in August 2011.

But her campaign failed to capitalize on her early momentum. Critically, when Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas., a conservative stalwart, entered the race, her poll numbers began to slide. After attacking Perry for ordering young girls in Texas to get vaccinated for the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus, she claimed that the vaccination could lead to mental retardation, a charge that scientists completely denounced. The New York Times wrote that the remark played into her “long-running penchant for exaggeration.” Bachmann also dealt with staff turnover: Ed Rollins, her campaign manager, abruptly quit; and much of her New Hampshire campaign staff resigned in October 2011, which raised the stakes in Iowa.

As a native of the state, Bachmann needed a strong showing in the Iowa Caucus on January 3. The sudden surge of former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. hurt her play for evangelicals and social conservatives. Like Bachmann, Santorum is an unabashed culture warrior known for his strong opposition to abortion and gay rights; any Santorum gain was inevitably her loss. Late in the game, Bachmann attacked Santorum for his past support of earmarks. In the final caucus vote, Bachmann finished a disappointing sixth place with just 5 percent of the vote. Santorum came out of nowhere to finish second, losing to Mitt Romney by just 8 votes. Bachmann dropped out of the race the next day.