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Minnesota's politics are quite varied, there are some areas that are very right-wing and other areas that are very progressive. Bachmann's district has a lot of areas that are very right-wing, but there are some parts of it that do have a strong progressive community. Republicans almost always win the district but they are not invulnerable there, Bachmann is very divisive even in her own district and she could be beat if enough of an effort is made to defeat her. In her first election Patty Wetterling ran against her who is a very respectable woman but unfortunately she was not a very good campaigner and did not know too much about the big national issues aside from helping missing and abused children. Despite her poorly ran campaign Wetterling was very well respected so she was able to give Bachmann a run for her money, but unfortunately it was not enough to defeat her. The last election cycle she was up against Elwyn Tinklenberg and early on the DFL determined the district a lost cause, but near the end of the campaign Bachmann made some extremely dumb comments on national television and money started pouring into Tinklenberg's campaign from all across the nation. Because the money did not come until late in the campaign it was difficult for Tinklenberg to turn things around and he lost, but he did manage to make Bachmann break a sweat.
This year Tarryl Clark is running against Bachmann and she has already raised more money than any Congressional candidate in Minnesota history at this time in the election cycle. Bachmann has raised a lot of money as well however, so this is going to turn into one of the most expensive Congressional campaigns in the nation. Make no mistake about it though, Bachmann is beatable and the more people know about her the less they like her. She is no longer able to win the state senate district that originally elected her as a Minnesota State Senator because the people who know her best know that she is a nut and they stopped voting for her.
If Bachmann is not defeated at the ballot box she could likely lose her seat because Minnesota is in danger of losing a Congressional seat after the census results come in, because Democrats are likely to have the biggest say in the redistricting process and Bachmann actually told people not to fill out the census the conventional wisdom says that if a seat is eliminated it will be hers.
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