WAVE TO GO, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and on and on. All contributed to the blue wave sweeping the nation in Tuesday’s mid-term elections. I couldn’t be more excited about the results, with the exception of some localized races.
It’s good to feel optimistic, to feel like “we the people” are reclaiming our country from the brink of disaster. I’ve felt for nearly two years now like the United States has been failing on so many levels under the leadership of a narcissistic, power-hungry president (and his minions) who could care less about the people.
Election results, which now put Congress in DFL control, give me hope that this country will see a restoration in the balance of power (among executive, legislative and judicial branches), an end to the corruption which has marked this presidency, and real change that will move us back into a good place.
It’s clear from election results that people are fed up with out-of-control prices, tariffs, trade wars, the Iran War, illegal immigration enforcement, unaffordable healthcare, constant belittling of people, hateful rhetoric, attacks on free speech and the press, destruction of the environment, gutting of government agencies, and on and on. You add your own concerns.
In Minnesota, we’ve elected our first female governor, Senator Amy Klobuchar. Ohio did the same. Minnesotans also elected the country’s first female Native American senator. Our neighbors to the east in Wisconsin voted in their first Black governor and Georgia elected its first Black woman to that state office. Texas will welcome its first Latina governor. And in Michigan, voters elected the first Muslim to the U.S. Senate. All are DFLers.
It was a big night, a big blue wave, for the Democratic party. If the President was expecting an endorsement of him and his policies when he asked voters to vote like he was on the ballot, well, that didn’t work out so well for him. He was resoundingly defeated. It seems he’s losing his grip on those who believed his promises to Make America Great Again.
In my U.S. First Congressional District in southern Minnesota, typically a Republican stronghold, voters flipped the seat. Jake Johnson, a high school math teacher, is the apparent winner over the incumbent Republican by a slim margin of 323 votes. Representative Brad Finstad has asked for a recount. I’m thrilled that, if results hold, I will have a representative who listens, who will continue to host town halls, who seems to genuinely and deeply care about the people he will serve.
We need that now more than ever. A willingness to listen. A willingness to stand up to the President and his policies. A willingness to work together for the good of all, not just the good of the wealthy and those with a singular, selfish agenda.
I’m excited about my local city council, which will now have four women serving, joining two councilmen and the mayor. On the school board, though, the only Latino on the ballot failed to get elected, a major failure on the part of voters, in my opinion. We needed his representation for our diverse community.
Republicans retained control of state House and Senate seats in my districts, another disappointment. But their challengers did well. That should send a strong message to the incumbents.
All in all, Tuesday’s election results give me hope that life will get better here in America.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Politics, passionate voices & peach pie at a potluck September 9, 2025
Tags: America, Ben Schierer, commentary, democracy, DFL, DFL Garden Party, freedom, Martha Brown, Matt Little, Minnesota, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, Minnesota Senator Erin Murphy, opinion, political candidates, politics, potluck, Rice County, southern Minnesota
MONDAY EVENING I GATHERED in rural Rice County with a crowd concerned about issues ranging from healthcare to immigration, agriculture, education, the environment, diversity, gun violence, the SNAP program, tariffs, voting rights, veterans’ benefits, the economy and much more. All current-day topics worrying many of us, including me.
I’ve never been politically active. Until this year. To stay silent now feels complicit. I care enough about this country, about freedom, about democracy, to let my voice be heard. I’ve participated in three pro-democracy rallies, including the NO KINGS Day Rally in Northfield and two on Labor Day in Owatonna. I’ve volunteered at a DFL Sweetcorn Feed in Faribault. I’ve donated to the DFL, called and emailed my legislators in Washington, DC. And Monday evening I attended a potluck, billed as a DFL Working Families Garden Party. This all from someone who previously voted primarily Republican. But no more, not in the past four Presidential elections or in some other past elections. I’ve always looked at candidates, their character and their stances on issues before voting. I still do, but party affiliation now matters to me, too.
DEEP CONCERN
At all of these recent events, I’ve heard—whether from politicians, candidates for office or ordinary people like me—a deep concern for our country under the current administration and those who go along with whatever our President says and does. This concern comes from good, decent people. Farmers, teachers, business owners, lawyers, blue collar workers, college students. People who carry crockpots of pulled pork and baked beans, bowls of creamy garden-fresh cucumber salad, peach pie and bars to a political party on a rural acreage.
As I sat in this bucolic setting Monday evening listening to short speeches from candidates like Martha Brown of Faribault, running for Minnesota House District 19A on the slogan of “Common-Sense Leadership for Working People,” or fiery Matt Little from Elko New Market who embraces the label of “radical” and who is running for Congress in the Second Congressional District or Ben Schierer of Fergus Falls, campaigning for state auditor and vowing to represent both urban and rural communities, I felt hope.
COMPASSION & HOPE
I felt hope, too, when I heard Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon talk about protecting voter information, voting rights and more. I felt hope when I heard Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy speak. As a nurse, her care and compassion for others threads through her speeches, shines in her political life.
Most notable in Murphy’s talk, at least for me, is the deep grief she feels over the politically-motivated assassination of her friend and colleague, Minnesota Speaker of the House Emerita Melissa Hortman and Hortman’s husband, Mark. The Hortmans were shot to death on June 14, the day I protested in Northfield, despite warnings not to do so. I refuse to be silenced.
Murphy spoke on Monday evening against a backdrop of American and Minnesota state flags and a banner of the Hortmans and their dog with this message: STAND UP FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE. She talked, too, about attending the funeral on Sunday of Fletcher Merkel, 8, among two students killed in a mass shooting that injured 21 others at Annunciation Catholic Church in south Minneapolis on August 27. Justice. Peace. No more gun violence.
UNPRECEDENTED
I’ve lived enough years to observe that what’s happening in this country right now is unprecedented. I’ve never felt more fearful of losing our freedoms under authoritarian rule. It’s happening already with snatching people off the streets, imprisonment and deportations without due process. It’s happening in intimidation and retribution; mass firings; suppression of free speech; funding cuts that are undermining research, healthcare, education and more; gathering of private information by the government; sending armed military into cities; and in countless other ways that affect all of us no matter our political affiliations.
This isn’t about rural vs urban. This isn’t about us vs them. This is, rather, about preserving and protecting our very freedoms as Americans. This is about caring and feeling hopeful. This is about speaking up. About doing something. And sometimes this is also about eating pulled pork, baked beans, cucumber salad and homemade peach pie at a potluck on a beautiful September evening in southern Minnesota.
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© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling