Former Rep. Jason Lewis (R-MN-02) celebrated his win in Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary in Minnesota by appearing on Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Tonight later that evening.
Lewis told host Matt Boyle, Breitbart News’ Washington political editor, he believes he will defeat incumbent Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) in the November general election.
A poll released by Emerson College on Tuesday showed Lewis trails Smith by three points, which is within the poll’s margin of error.
“How are you going to beat Tina Smith? Why is this Senate race so important?” Boyle asked Lewis.
“When I got into the race a year ago, I wanted to make sure the Trump agenda would continue. That the court would be adjudicating according to the laws written, not according to the laws they would like to see in place. I wanted to make America first and got the Iron Range in Minnesota, which sits atop the largest mineral resources in the world when it comes to copper and nickel,” Lewis responded.
Lewis went on to explain that the past year has seen an acceleration in the importance of the issues that motivated him to get into the Senate race.
“All of those were in play a year ago. Now we’re getting down to the core fundamentals of why we have government in a free society. Public order. Law enforcement. The use of force, or the use of illegitimate force,” Lewis noted.
The former Congressman then criticized the way Minnesota has handled the coronavirus pandemic.
“Lockdowns that are far extending any rationale. We have a party that’s so intoxicated with power that they are willing to use a public health challenge for political purposes and lock down kids, denying them of an education in Minnesota where there’s been no covid spike,” he noted, adding:
So all of those things, kind of cut to the core, here, Matt, and say what kind of country, what kind of a state, do you want to live in?
What we’re seeing, certainly in greater Minnesota, but now around the suburbs, like places in my old Congressional District, we’re seeing people say enough is enough. This is nuts. Defunding the police? Keeping my child out of school for another year?
Lewis also noted the Emerson College poll released earlier in the day showed him in a statistical tie with Sen. Smith.
“It’s something we’ve felt on the ground for a while, but we haven’t seen validation in a poll until today,” he added.
That same poll also showed President Trump trailing Joe Biden in Minnesota by just three points, also within the margin of error.
Lewis, a former radio talk show host, represented Minnesota’s Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for one term from 2017 to 2019. He was defeated for re-election in 2018 by Democratic challenger Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-02).
Lewis explained why he believes he will beat incumbent Sen. Smith.
“The narrative of Minnesota going back decades [in the mainstream media] is it’s such a solidly blue state,” Lewis said.
“But the longest serving Speaker of the Minnesota House was a Republican,” he added.
“You can’t describe [historically] the mix that makes up Minnesota. . . Trump tapped in to that working man and woman in greater Minnesota who was the forgotten man and woman, and he’s brought them back to the Republican Party,” Lewis continued.
President Trump narrowly lost Minnesota in the 2016 presidential election to Hillary Clinton by 44,000 votes.
“This angst among suburban voters over defund the police,” is starting to hurt Smith’s standing with voters, Lewis noted, adding Smith is associated with those efforts in the minds of voters, while he has been a champion of the rule of law.
Control of the U.S. Senate, where Republicans currently have a 53 to 47 majority, is up for grabs in the 2020 election. Should Lewis defeat Smith and flip the Minnesota seat from Democrat to Republican control, odds that the Republicans will maintain the majority in the U.S. Senate will improve considerably.
You can listen to the complete interview here:
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