2018 General Election Withdrew
2018 Primary Lost race for Lt. Governor
Of the Congressional elections that Democrats won in 2016, Rick Nolan’s was the closest. He received 2072 more votes than his opponent. There were 356,979 votes. That is an extremely close election. That is one seriously vulnerable Congressman.
I have been slow to write about Rick Nolan http://www.nolanforcongress.org/ because he has expressed interest in running for governor. It is not going to happen. He has now announced he was going to run for reelection to Congress instead. The opportunity to run successfully for governor had passed and, while he didn’t say it out loud, he acknowledged it.
Rick Nolan is an unusual man and an unusual politician. In his seventies, his current stint as a Congressman is his third career. He was elected in 2012, winning handily against an incumbent. The 2014 and 2016 elections were extremely close.
Rick Nolan was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016. He has argued for a single payer health plan. He has opposed pipelines, opposed stringent anti-abortion proposals, supported a ban on automatic weapons (says he doesn’t need one to kill a duck) and traveled to Cuba to encourage trade and an end to the embargo.
His first career was also as a politician and Congressman. A young aide to Walter Mondale, after a brief stint as a teacher, he ran for Congress in 1972, lost in a close race, but won handily in the next three elections. Consistent in his foreign policy views, he traveled to Cuba in 1977 to encourage trade and an end to the embargo. In 1980, thirty-six years before supporting Bernie Sanders for President, Rick Nolan showed his preference for a liberal insurgent for President by focusing his energy on Ted Kennedy for President. Rick Nolan did not run for reelection to Congress.
In between his stints as a Congressman, Rick Nolan was a politically connected businessman. He was President of the US Export Corporation, then became head of the Minnesota World Trade Center. Later, before a return to electoral politics, he was the owner of a saw mill and wood products business — a business with no connection to politics at all except, perhaps, for tariffs and Canada.
If you get political emails, you get emails from Rick Nolan. He is a persistent fundraiser, online and otherwise. He needs financial help in his run for reelection. He is a Republican target. In 2016, his opponent, who may run again in 2018, was extremely wealthy. With support, Rick Nolan http://www.nolanforcongress.org/, can return to a Congress which could conceivably have a Democratic majority. Help him return to Congress and help create that majority. Remember, this is a 2018 election. Monthly donations are extremely helpful, even very small monthly donations.
