Hunch. Brad Finstad won this seat by 17 points in 2024, more than any of the four earlier members had won by before late money came in against them.
The seat market resolves on the Minnesota Secretary of State results for Congress in the 1st District: YES if Brad Finstad gets more votes than Jake Johnson in the vote of 3 November 2026, NO if Johnson or another candidate gets more. The results are read on 4 November and confirmed by Reuters or The New York Times; if they name no winner by the end of that day, the result declared after the State Canvassing Board meets on 19 November settles it.
We looked for cases where a member of Congress from the president’s party faced at least $1 million from the other party’s main national group in the last seven days before a midterm election. We found four such races, three in 2022 and one in 2018, in the spending reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Each time the money came from a party’s own campaign committee for Congress.