GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach seeks third term in western Minnesota, faces DFL’s AJ Peters

In western Minnesota’s deep-red Seventh Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach is the Republican incumbent up against a Browerville man who ran unsuccessfully for Minnesota Senate twice.

Democrat A. John Peters, also known as AJ, is challenging Fischbach, a Trump loyalist from Litchfield who was first elected in 2020 when she beat Democrat Collin Peterson, who had represented the area for 30 years. Since them she has amassed one of the most conservative voting records in Minnesota’s delegation.

She tromped her last Democratic challenger in 2022 by about 40 percentage points. Although Fischbach, 58, lost the GOP party endorsement to primary challenger Steve Boyd, he lost to Fischbach by nearly 30 percentage points in August.

“In my race, I think the election will validate the work I’ve been doing on behalf of the good people in western Minnesota. I am honored to be their voice in D.C. advocating for decency, common sense, and our rural way of life,” Fischbach wrote in a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Peters, 76, her DFL-endorsed opponent who runs a computer repair shop in Long Prairie, said some Boyd voters are backing him.

“I’ve talked to several that are going to vote for me because they dislike her so much,” Peters told the Minnesota Star Tribune a few days ahead of the election. “But I don’t expect all of them to because we disagree on almost every policy question in the world.”

Peters said his goal is to get 35% of the votes, noting some polls gave him less than a 1% chance of defeating Fischbach.

She served in the Minnesota Senate for more than two decades — the first woman to serve as its president — before a one-year stint as lieutenant governor.

As a congresswoman, she voted against former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment and against an independent panel to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump has endorsed her.

Peters lost state Senate races to former Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka in 2020 and in 2022 to Sen. Paul Utke, R-Park Rapids.

The Seventh District is Minnesota’s largest by land area and is one of the nation’s top-producing agricultural districts. It spans 38 counties from the Canadian border south almost to Iowa.