Walz v. Hagedorn; Who Will be Victorious?

In election year of 2016 Tim Walz faced off against Jim Hagedorn.

2016 Results: 335,877 Total Votes

Walz: 169,074 votes (50.3%)

Hagedorn: 166,526 votes (49.6%)

Margin or Victory: 0.7%

Walz barely escaped the Democratic exodus that was happening across the country in the 2016 elections.

2016 Presidential Election: Walz endorsed Hillary Clinton in the election while Hagedorn endorsed Trump.

In the election Trump overwhelmingly won the district; his margin of victory in most counties was over 20%. Clinton only won one county in the whole district. 

Primary Outlook: Walz was unopposed in the primary and thus ended with 13,538 votes or 100% of the vote.

General Election Outlook: It is a safe bet that Hagedorn will be back again in 2018. If he does run it will be his 3rd try against Walz. 

Current Prediction: It would be safe to say that this next election is a toss up. With Hagedorn only losing by 0.7% of the vote, he will more then likely be back again to challenge Walz in 2018. It should also be noted that Walz usually wins by a lesser margin in midterm elections (2016 is the one exception), so 2018 may be a challenging election year for him.

Campaign Finance Status: Walz raised $1,547,890 in 2015-2016. During his campaign he spent $1,585,118. 

Top 5 Contributors: 

1. Kaplan Robins (law firm)

2. General Mills (food company)

3. Pohlad Companies (banking)

4. Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (union)

5. National Education Assn (union)

Sources: Individual Contributions $774,075 (50%)

PAC Contributions $773,720 (50%)

Issues: Walz campaigned on the issues of a clean energy future and the jobs that follow it, and he also emphasized the issue of workforce training. Along with those he also puts Veteran mental health and VA reform high on his list of issues.

Hagedorn was quoted in saying "I've been running on replacing Obamacare... securing our borders... weeding out excessive government and having things like regulatory reform at the federal level, so all those issues, those big national issues are now front and center in this campaign."