Democrats in Minnesota hoping to make the most of a second chance

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - You’re about to see a lot more of Jeff Ettinger. In the weeks leading up to the election, he plans on ramping up ads in the hopes of making up those 5 thousand or so votes that handed Congressman Brad Finstad the victory back in August.

“We want to focus on those last three or four weeks of the election,” said Ettinger. “Yes, there’s early voting and we understand that we’re talking with people, but we think still the strong majority of the voters turn out in those last stages.”

After a relatively quiet September for both Finstad and Ettinger – both candidates are now planning on picking up the pace.

“We’ll be on air with television and radio ads starting next week,” said Ettinger.

Ettinger is hoping a fresh crop of Democratic voters who sat out the August vote will turn up come November.

“There were 130,000 votes then, and it will be over 300,000 voters,” said Ettinger. “So our goal is we lost by we were short 5000 votes in August and there will be 200,000 new voters. So we’re working hard to reach them.”

For Brad Finstad, he’s sticking to the strategy that sealed his victory in the special election. He knows the issues, because he knows the district.

“I mean, I’m I’m southern Minnesota as it gets,” said Finstad “I’m a fourth generation product of southern Minnesota. My wife and I met in second grade on the school bus. She’s a fourth generation product of southern Minnesota. We’re raising the fifth generation. We farm and we own a small business right here in our community.”

If history is any indicator - this isn’t a solid republican or democratic district. Since the 1980s, Democrats and Republicans have consistently traded off in representing the area. But if August is any indicator - it does seem to be leaning republican. Only 5 of the 21 counties in the district went to Democrat Jeff Ettinger.