Blue Earth resident Jennifer Carnahan is very busy as she spends every day out campaigning across southern Minnesota. She is one of 10 Republican candidates vying to fill her late husband Jim Hagedorn’s position as Minnesota Congressman from the First Congressional District. A primary election is coming on May 24. There are also eight Democrats vying to become the next congressman from the First District.

This is an election year, and in 2022, there is going to be a lot of election excitement with the fact that four different elections are being held between now and the end of the year.

The first one is coming up soon, on May 24, when there will be a Primary Election to determine which candidates will face off in an Aug. 9 Special Election which will determine who will be the First District Congressman to fill out the rest of this year.

That open seat was created with the death of Congressman Jim Hagedorn, of Blue Earth.

There will be a second Primary Election on Aug. 9, at the same time as the Special Election, which, among other things, will determine who will face off on the General Election Ballot on Nov. 8, which will determine who will be the First District Congressman for the next two years.

Twenty candidates have filed to be on the May 24 ballot – 10 Republicans, eight Democrats and two others.

Mail-in ballot voting and absentee voting for the May 24 Primary Election is already underway. The Faribault County Auditor’s office has sent out mail-in ballots to the seven precincts in the county which now use mail-in ballots only.

“We are seeing some of those being returned,” says Jessica Blair in the auditor’s office. “But requests for absentee ballots are coming in very slowly.”

One of the names on the Republican side of the primary ballot of May 24 is that of a Blue Earth woman, Jennifer Carnahan, the widow of Jim Hagedorn.

“Some people are surprised to learn that I live in Blue Earth,” Carnahan said in an interview last week. “But I moved here quite a while ago, and I have continued to live here in our home after Jim’s death.”

Others are not so surprised, as she admits to not taking the time to cook much, so she is a frequent visitor to Average Jo’s, Farmer’s Daughters and China Restaurant.

“I am lucky there are such great restaurants here in Blue Earth,” she says with a laugh. “Sometimes I feel I live at Average Jo’s and Farmers’ Daughters.”

But lately, she has also been visiting restaurants in Fairmont, Jackson, Windom, New Ulm, Mankato and a host of other cities across southern Minnesota.

Carnahan is no stranger to politics and campaigning. Besides having been married to a U.S. Congressman, Carnahan was the State GOP Party chairperson for some years. As such she helped guide numerous Republican Party candidates’ campaigns across the state.

“I am a firm believer in door-knocking,” she says. Door-knocking is going from town to town in the First District and literally knocking on doors of potential voters. If they answer the door, she visits with them. If they don’t, she leaves an information flyer.

Carnahan started the door-knocking in Blue Earth, Frost and Bricelyn and has continued to expand outward around the First District.

She and her campaign team have a list of potential GOP voters in each town, and those are the doors they are knocking on for this May 24 election.

“I have a great team with me,” she says. “In the last month we have knocked on 20,000 doors.”

When she was GOP Party chair, she directed a door-knocking campaign that rapped on a million doors. The record is hitting five and a half million doors state-wide, she says.

Carnahan is considered by some as the front runner in the GOP contest which has nine other candidates. She says she feels confident of her chances as she has name recognition across the First District and the state, because of her husband and because of her years of work in the Republican Party.

The other nine Republican candidates running for the right to advance to the Special Election ballot in August are: Rep. Nels Pierson of Rochester, Rep. Jeremy Munson of Lake Crystal, former state Rep. Brad Finstad of New Ulm, Matt Benda, Ken Navitsky, Kevin Kocina, J.R. Ewing, Bob “Again” Carney Jr. and Roger Ungemach.

The eight Democrats are former Hormel CEO Jeff Ettinger, Sarah Brakebill-Hacke, Rick DeVoe, Candace Deal-Bartell, Richard W. Painter, George H. Kalberer, Warren Lee Anderson and James Rainwater.

The other two candidates are Haroun McClellan of the Grassroots Legalize Cannibis Party and Richard B. Reisdorf of the Legal Marijuana Now Party.

Carnahan says she is not surprised by the number of Republicans vying for the congressional seat, but she was surprised by the number of DFL candidates.

“Jim worked very hard to get elected and have a Republican representing the First District,” she says. “He had to fight hard for several years to get there, and I believe his hard work makes it possible for a Republican candidate to be elected this fall.”

And, Carnahan wants to be that GOP candidate.

“Jim was a strong leader for Minnesota and the First District and he had strong conservative values,” Carnahan says. “We talked about the possibility of me running for his congressional seat because he wanted me to continue the good work he started.”