Tom Emmer has toned down his Tea Party message

WASHINGTON — Ask Republican Tom Emmer his top priority if sent to Capitol Hill to represent ­Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District and the 2010 gubernatorial candidate who fashioned himself as a small-government Tea Party devotee four years ago has a mellow and somewhat surprising answer: "What can we do to help?"

"You use whatever resources are available. Your job is to help them solve whatever problem they can," Emmer said in an interview, acknowledging that he also would favor federal money for local projects, particularly roads and bridges. "I think we're at the point where we all want the same things. We may have different ideas on how to get there, but this job, again, is about service."

When Emmer last ran for office, against DFL Gov. Mark Dayton four years ago, anti-Washington fervor was in full fashion among the right flank of the Republican Party. In the shadow of a still-unpopular national health care law, the 2010 midterms produced an unstoppable GOP sweep across the U.S. House of Representatives.

At Tea Party rallies that year, Emmer embraced the mood. He promised that as governor, he would divorce state government as much as he could from the feds and move to scale back social services.

"We are losing our liberty, we are losing our freedom, and I don't think people want to say it quite that way, but they feel it," Emmer said to the Star Tribune in 2010.

The Delano lawyer explains his not-so-subtle tone shift, from Tea Party flamer to Dr. Phil, this way: He's no longer running to be an executive but merely one in 435, a humble servant of the people living in the frog-shaped Sixth that runs up north and west from the Twin Cities.

Emmer's genial, non fire-breathing approach may also be an antidote to something else: The district's current representation.

GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, who announced last year she would not seek another term, has represented the Sixth since 2007 and ran for president in 2012. When she flopped in Iowa and came home, she found herself $1 million in campaign debt and facing an untested Democrat who had been out-campaigning her locally for months. Bachmann won by a scant 4,300 votes — a surprise even to Democratic observers because the district skews so conservative.

Numbers show that Bachmann had been dramatically underperforming in the last few political cycles — particularly in presidential years. In 2012, she garnered 26,400 fewer votes than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney did in her home district. In 2008, she drew 32,100 fewer votes than Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, though there was a third-party congressional candidate on the ballot that year.

Sixth District Republicans say voters there don't necessarily disagree with Bachmann's record, they just wish they saw her around more.

"It's conservative, no question, but I do think they expect their member of Congress to be helpful to them and engaged and around, and maybe less focused on a presidential race," said Charlie Weaver, executive director of the Minnesota Business Partnership, who lives in Anoka. "Clearly Michele … that's what she was focused on the last couple years, she focused on national issues."

Former state Senate GOP leader Amy Koch compared the dynamic to former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, from Virginia, who lost his House seat in June to a relatively unknown primary opponent.

"Voters are looking for their representatives to represent them," Koch said. "They may not agree with Tom politically … but whoever it is who reaches out to him, he will be responsive."

While still conservative, the Sixth has shifted demographically — it's older and more nonwhite than it was in 2006, according to state demographics. Since 2006, the number of people age 45 and older has swelled. So has the number of black and Latino voters. Despite that, the Atlantic magazine in an analysis found the district to be the least diverse socioeconomically in the nation.

Politically, the Sixth remains the most conservative district in the state, particularly after redistricting in 2010. Democrats put up only modest opposition in the form of Sartell Mayor Joe Perske, who had just $38,000 cash on hand according to pre-primary reports filed over the summer.

Observers say that Emmer is nevertheless running like he is behind, glad-handing at nursing homes and parades, and showing up at every chamber breakfast up and down Interstate 94. His yard signs are everywhere. He has raised a substantial campaign war chest — $160,000 cash on hand, according to summer reports.

Perske acknowledged the race in Minnesota's reddest section will be a difficult road.

"It's kind of a David and Goliath story," said Perske, who is running on a Washington-is-broken plank and said he wants to go to Capitol Hill to be a problem solver. "I'm not a career politician. People know I have passion to do what's right."

Emmer says Washington will be an interesting place to watch over the next decade because so many leaders — from GOP House Speaker John Boehner to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — likely will be retiring.

"Whether it's by the voters choice or their own choice, within the next decade you're going to see a complete changing of the guard at the federal level," Emmer said. "The opportunity that will present itself will be to actually do some good things in terms of making sure that the federal government goes back to the service model that it's supposed to be."

Allison Sherry • 202.383.6120