Rick Nolan in political fight of his life vs. Stewart Mills in pricey 8th District race

BRAINERD, MINN. - Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan's impassioned speech at a darkened bar here was a decided departure from those given by dozens of vulnerable Democrats across the country.

"Of course we support the Affordable Care Act for all the good things it's done for so many people, but that doesn't mean we're done. We're not going to be done until we have a single payer system!" Nolan said, his hoarse voice rising above the friendly crowd sipping pitchers of light beer and sitting among peanut shells. "Let's get back to returning the House of Representatives to the people's chamber … and then we can join … the president of these United States of America to get this country back on track again."

Nolan is currently a tad worrisome to Washington Democrats. An old-school politician — he served three House terms in the late 1970s — Nolan leaves party talking points out of his speeches just about every day. He brazenly bashes beltway playbooks that politely ask him to log 30 hours a week dialing for dollars. He often reverts to fevered hyperbole when talking about his job in Washington. In one speech, he called the current House of Representatives "the most undemocratic institution that I have ever served in."

He says he prefers the old days when members of Congress stayed in Washington longer, debated everything, and were handily able to secure federal funding for their districts.

Yet as genuine and unscrubbed as Nolan's opinions may be to some constituents, the Eighth Congressional District is no longer the Democratic stronghold of old, tending instead to whip around with the political winds of the moment.

The result?

The 70-year-old Nolan is in the political fight of his life against Republican Stewart Mills, a 42-year-old scion of Mills Fleet Farm enterprises. Mills himself has cut his own counterculture GOP image with long hair, tight polo shirts and a Twitter feed full of shots of him doing pullups, eating corn and posing around various kitschy landmarks in the Eighth Congressional District.

This colorful matchup in the Eighth is Minnesota's hottest political race. It has been dubbed a "toss up" by every political observer in the country and has already garnered more than $2 million in outside money for ads. This ranks it among the top 10 House races in the country for outside cash pouring in, according to the Sunlight Foundation.

Ask the candidates why the race is so close and the answers are starkly different.

Mills says Nolan is a nice guy who is too deeply embedded in the Washington establishment and too liberal for the rural stretches of northern Minnesota.

"He's abused the vote we've given him in Washington DC," Mills said. "I'm going to remove somebody who is part of the problem."

Nolan says millions spent against him starting more than a year ago have roughed up his image in the district.

"I was running like 10 or 12 percent ahead of this guy, but a couple million dollars of beating up on you and suddenly you're in a dead heat," Nolan said. "I'm confident we're going to be able to win this thing, but it's going to be a close race."

On the campaign trail, Mills is running on eliminating some proposed environmental regulations he says hurt Minnesota farmers and his support for the second amendment. He talks about ditching Obamacare for something friendlier to "main street" and also frequently dings Nolan for being against veterans because he voted against a Department of Veterans Affairs appropriations bill last summer.

"We do speak to the values and priorities of our part of Minnesota," Mills said. "Certainly you can't be for jobs and against the activities that create jobs."

Ted Lovdahl, GOP chair for the Eighth Congressional District, said people find Mills' nontraditional approach and look appealing.

"I have a lot of DFL friends who say, 'Ted, I'm going to vote for your man,'" Lovdahl said. "They like his honesty. People ask him different questions, and he never walks away."

Nolan engages Mills less, rarely uttering his name on the stump, and instead touts his two-year record in the minority party in Washington. He says he voted against the veterans spending bill because it didn't address mental health and was less than what President Obama and the VA sought from Congress.

He is most proud of the $71 million in federal cash he has sent back to the district for projects, along with two bills he authored that passed the House. One streamlined regulatory requirements for small aircraft manufacturers and another was an Indian land swap with Carlton County.

Nolan boasts that he has stood up to the Environmental Protection Agency on his district's behalf — once even flying to a Chicago field office for a meeting to delay the implementation of regulations that would affect some northern Minnesota mines.

"They [the EPA] are really hurting industry up here," said Dave Bombich, union president at ArcelorMittal iron ore mine in Virginia. Two years ago Bombich supported Nolan's GOP predecessor, Rep. Chip Cravaack. Now he favors Nolan.

"Tell me what you can do today without steel?" Bombich asks. "I think Rick knows all this and is backing all of us on this, and that's why I support him."

In the coming weeks, the avalanche of political advertising pulsing through the district is expected to grow. In addition to the outside money, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved $1.1 million in ads for Nolan, while the National Republican Congressional Committee has booked roughly the same for Mills.

Though required to help him win, this is anathema to Nolan, who this week proposed reforms to Congress that would ban fundraising during Washington work periods and limit spending on congressional campaigns to a period 60 days before an election. He said change is needed because "it's too much money and not enough governance."

But that doesn't change the reality of election season in a swing district.

"I still want to remain true to my promise to spend my time governing, which I have done," Nolan said. "But now it's election time and I'm busy raising money. These are the rules of the game."

Allison Sherry • 202-383-6120