Republican Attorney Considers Bachmann Primary Challenge

By Emily Cadei | June 3, 2009 4:02 PM | | Comments (0)

Don't get Minnesota attorney Chris Johnston started on Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, whom he refers to on his blog www.beatmichelle.blogspot.com, as an "'anti-American' hurling, malaprop- spouting, they took me out of context, Congresswoman,"

But Johnston is no liberal activist. In fact, he says he and Bachmann "share some strong conservative beliefs." As the Minnesota Independent first noted, Johnston is considering a challenge to the second-term congresswoman in a Republican primary because "the people of the 6th District deserve to be represented by someone who thinks before they speak."

Bachmann has a strong base of conservative support in her district and around the country, and one man does not a groundswell of opposition make. Johnston also lost his one previous bid for office, for the state Senate in 2002. But as Johnston noted on his blog, some local Republicans "are worried that should I run that the 'DFLers will line up...' to vote for me in the primary just to beat Bachmann."

Minnesota does have open primaries that allow voters to pick which party they want to vote in on primary day. But voting in the GOP primary would prevent members of the Democratic-Farm-Labor party, the state equivalent of the Democratic party, from having a say in their own contested primary between DFL candidates Elwyn Tinklenberg and Maureen Reed.

More from CQ Politics

Categories: House, Minnesota

Tags: Bachmann, Johnston, Reed, Tinklenberg

Post A Comment


(for verification only; will not be published with your comment)