The government has a big role in that the government should have a big role in stepping back and letting job creators and small businesses do their job.”

Joe Teirab

Rep. Angie Craig and Joe Teirab clashed over issues ranging from abortion to Social Security, policing to immigration at the Oct. 7 debate as the race for Minnesota Congressional District 2 reaches its final stretch. The debate, which took place at the Lakeville Area Arts Center, was hosted by local chambers of commerce across District 2 including the Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau.
At the top of the debate, during their opening statements, both candidates referenced the date: it had been one year since Hamas invaded Israel taking 254 hostages and killing more than 1,200 people, according to a press release from the Department of State. Both candidates underscored the need to support Israel, with Craig highlighting the need for a “two state solution,” and Teirab saying the United States needs to “get peace through strength.”
In their opening statements, Rep. Craig referenced her roots growing up in a trailer home and working to put herself through college before becoming an executive with St. Jude Medical and then becoming the representative for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District in 2018. Teirab referenced his small-town roots in Windom, Minn/ as the son of the Sudanese immigrant who worked at a beef processing plant. Teirab also mentioned his five years in the Marine Corps, and his time as a federal prosecutor.
The first question to the candidates was about the role of government in incentivizing economic growth. Teirab began by saying, “The government has a big role in that the government should have a big role in stepping back and letting job creators and small businesses do their job.”
Teirab condemned the federal spending bills after the pandemic saying it “threw gas on the inflation fire.” Rep. Craig referenced her time as an executive at St. Jude Medical and the work she and the company did with then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty in order to ensure the Twin Cities’ placement of the company’s corporate headquarters. “My experience has been in business that when you have a strong public/private partnership, the public side investing in infrastructure, like the bipartisan infrastructure bill, that oftentimes the private sector investment follows that.”
Candidates were asked about Minnesota’s high corporate tax rate, which is one of the highest in the nation. Rep. Craig referenced a bill she introduced to lower the tax rate for small businesses: “The federal tax rate is 21%. I have a bill that would lower that to 18% on any businesses, the first 400,000 in revenue, up to a $5 million business.” Teirab called Minnesota’s tax business climate “just unacceptable,” again railing against federal spending in recent years. “What we have to do is pass tax relief for middle class families and this begins with expanding the 2017 tax cuts,” said Teirab.
Both candidates spoke to the 2017 tax cuts, signed into law on Dec. 17, 2017 by President Trump, with many individual income tax cuts in the bill set to expire in 2025 and many business tax cuts to expire in 2028. The candidates agreed on keeping the 20% small business deduction as well as the importance of the expanded standard deduction.
Candidates also spoke to how they envisioned addressing inflation. Teirab rapid fire listed how he would go about it: “We can cut reckless spending. We can root out waste, fraud and abuse, like I was honored to do as a federal prosecutor. But one thing we need to do is making sure we are growing the economic pie by reducing regulation and reducing taxes.” Rep. Craig spoke to her work reducing the cost of prescription drugs as well as gasoline via the sale of year-round e15, but stood behind the CARES Act in order to “save employee’s jobs at a number of businesses like Spiral Brewery in Hastings and Wildcats in Eagan,” referencing the 21,000 loans that went to businesses in the 2nd Congressional District.
When speaking to education and the workforce, both candidates spoke to the importance of investing in technical colleges as well as reforming the immigration system so that companies can better find workers.
When asked directly about immigration, Rep. Craig spoke to her break with the Biden administration’s decision to end Title 42 prematurely, as well as her visit to the border with a bipartisan group of legislators. She brought up the Bipartisan Border Security Bill that failed to pass the US Senate early in 2024 as a potential solution to the border problem, claiming former-President Trump killed the bill in order to campaign on the issue of Immigration.
Teirab spoke to the need for a legal way for workers to enter the country: “I know that we have job creators who need folks in the workforce, but we need to have a process that is legal.” He claimed that despite Rep. Craig’s talk, “words are cheap and actions matter,” referencing her vote against a 2023 border security bill that according to Teirab “would have built more of the border wall, it would have given more funding to border agents, and it would have actually reformed our asylum process.”
Discussions of rising healthcare costs and how to make healthcare more affordable and accessible quickly turned to the issue of abortion with Rep. Craig saying the most significant issue voters bring up to her is about women’s health. She referenced Teirab’s placement on the board of New Life Family Services, a Christian pregnancy center that “won’t tell women the full range of options that they have,” said Craig.
Teirab fired back calling the reference “honestly sad and pathetic that you bring it up in this context when you support women.” Teirab rejected the premise of bringing up the issue of abortion at all saying “I’m running for Minnesota Second Congressional District. This is not a federal issue. This is a state issue.”
In his closing statement, Teirab posed himself as a vote against the status quo: “I think we can go a different direction by cutting reckless spending, by actually rooting out waste, fraud and abuse and yes, extending those tax cuts from 2017.”
Rep. Craig presented herself as a staunch independent voice in congress, citing the Common Ground Committee having ranked her as the “top 3% of all bipartisan members of congress,” and “Pro Politico has said that I’m the sixth most independent Democrat in the entire democratic party.”
Early voting for the Nov. 5 election has already begun at the Hastings City Hall and Dakota County Government Center with no-excuse absentee ballots available to be requested at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website at https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/other-ways-to-vote/vote-early-by-mail/