Will Minnesota’s long-blue Iron Range turn red in November?

Kathy Merkel grew up in a family of staunch Democrats, raised by a mother who she says only voted straight blue. But Merkel, who lives in the northern Minnesota mining town of Virginia, said she is voting for Republicans because she believes they better represent the interests of the Iron Range.

So is Lisa Westby, who lives just 10 miles north of Virginia in the town of Britt. Westby, who was also raised in a DFL family, said political tides on the Range have turned against Democrats amid the party’s embrace of environmental concerns about mining.

DFL lawmakers “are killing mining,” Westby said at a recent candidate meet-and-greet event in Virginia. “People up here want to have jobs so they have a roof over their head and can put food on the table.”

Their views reflect the political transformation of Minnesota’s Iron Range. The blue-collar region supported pro-labor Democrats for decades until environmental concerns about mining and the urban-rural cultural divide pushed it to the right. Minnesota Republicans are hopeful the region’s rightward shift will help them win every state House seat on the Range this year and end the DFL’s trifecta control of state government.

The last House Democratic holdout on the Range is District 7B, which includes mining towns such as Virginia, Eveleth and Aurora and stretches south near the order of the Fond du Lac reservation. Democrats have narrowly held onto the district even as Republican former President Donald Trump won it in 2020. But the unexpected retirement of incumbent DFL Rep. Dave Lislegard earlier this year left the House seat wide open.

Republican Cal Warwas, a third-generation miner and union member from Clinton Township, is vying for the seat. He’s facing Democrat Lorrie Janatopoulos, an Eveleth resident and former employee at the state Department of Employment and Economic Development. Their race is expected to be one of Minnesota’s most competitive state House elections.

The 48-year-old Warwas has worked at U.S. Steel’s Minntac mine since he was 19. He’s involved with pro-mining advocacy groups and also serves on the Clinton Township Board.

Warwas said he believes the “metro DFL” has left mining behind: “If we want to sustain this district as a people and as a way of life, we need to switch gears.”

He said he would fight to push new mining projects forward if elected, and he’d pursue property tax relief measures, among other things.

Mining isn’t the only issue where Democrats have diverged from the people of the Range, Warwas said. He pointed to a bill Gov. Tim Walz signed into law last year making Minnesota a refuge for people seeking gender-affirming care.

“That’s not popular with people here,” Warwas said. “Our value set here does not align with those kinds of ideas.”

Janatopoulos, a pro-mining Democrat, said she thinks the people of District 7B care more about kitchen-table issues than culture-war debates about gender-affirming care. She’s lived on the Range for nearly 50 years and said she wants to follow in the footsteps of revered Iron Range Democrats such as Tom Rukavina.

“I want to follow in not only Tommy Rukavina’s but Dave Lislegard’s tradition,” she said. “Dave was great at really bringing home bread-and-butter issues and accomplishments for the people of the range.”

The departing Lislegard drew praise from even some Republicans who attended the candidate meet-and-greet event in Virginia. Merkel called Lislegard “a huge champion” for the Iron Range who has done “so much work” for the area.

Janatopoulos said she believes Iron Rangers are still open to electing Democrats. She describes herself as a problem solver who’s “tired of the divisiveness,” someone who would work across the aisle.

“Just because somebody doesn’t believe everything I believe on some issues, I can work with them and I do work with them,” Janatopoulos said. She said she’d seek property tax relief, funding for rural emergency medical services and to increase town aid to the same percentage as local government aid, if elected.

Virginia resident Dave Hansen said he longs for the Range’s powerhouse DFL days, when the region was represented by the late state legislators Rukavina and David Tomassoni. The Range “has been turning more red every year,” said Hansen, who’s running for City Council. He fears what will happen if northeastern Minnesota becomes a GOP stronghold.

“I think we’re going to lose money,” Hansen said, referring to past Republican attempts to send taconite production tax dollars to communities outside the Range.

Democrats believe they have another opportunity to win an Iron Range seat in neighboring District 3A, which spans from Koochiching County to Cook County.

First-term state Rep. Roger Skraba, R-Ely, is facing Democrat Harley Droba, the mayor of International Falls. Skraba was elected in 2022 by a razor-thin margin of 15 votes. Rich Tru, an independent Forward Party candidate, is also running for the seat.

Droba said he’s running for the state House because he thinks Skraba hasn’t been a strong enough advocate for the district. The mayor said he would be a more effective representative, pointing to the growth that International Falls has experienced in the past five years under his leadership.

Two new hotels, two gas stations and a grocery store opened in International Falls during his tenure, Droba said, as did the city’s first new apartment complex in nearly 50 years.

“We’ve seen legitimate change,” Droba said. “We’re growing for the first time.”

International Falls and other communities in the district still have pressing needs, Droba said. More funding is needed for rural health care and ambulance services, he said, adding that he would make the issue a top priority.

Skraba, who was the mayor of Ely before he was elected to the House, believes he’s earned another term. He cited the millions of dollars in infrastructure funding that he secured for local projects in the 2023 bonding bill, and a $24 million funding package for rural ambulance services that passed earlier this year.

“I was just in Littlefork last night. They got $202,000, they bought a new ambulance,” Skraba said. But he added that the DFL-controlled Legislature should have set aside more funding for rural ambulance services when the state had a historic $17 billion budget surplus.

“You could have helped us last year; you chose not to,” Skraba said.

Skraba was once a Democrat, like many who live in his district and on the Iron Range. But times have changed, he said.

“I think a lot of the Iron Range people are waking up going, ‘I identify more with the other side now,’ ” Skraba said. “For me, the Democrats were doing things that weren’t germane to rural Minnesota anymore. They were getting more metro, and rural Minnesotans are like, ‘Hey, what about us?’ ”

Droba said he still believes the district can swing either way. If it’s truly become more conservative, he said a higher-turnout presidential election will show it.

“I really believe that if the winds of change are turning and we are becoming more conservative, this will be the election that really shows that because it is the first presidential year after the redistricting,” Droba said.