Rep Michele Fischbach failed to garner the 60% support needed to win the Republican Party of Minnesota endorsement at the Congressional District 7 convention on Saturday. After three ballots of voting, it appeared that newcomer Steve Boyd had a large enough faction of the delegate body to ensure Fischbach didn’t succeed. After a third round vote of 54-45% (Fischbach to Boyd), delegates made a motion for no endorsement and adjourned.
A contentious part of the endorsing convention was the motion made to accept the new slate of 2024 delegates from the Otter Tail County grassroots convention that MNGOP Chair Hann said would not be recognized. According to our sources at the convention, this motion was popular and likely would pass.
Prior to the convention, Hann send out a letter stating that the convention can only seat Otter Tail County delegates from 2022 who signed a specific pledge to support the endorsed candidate. This pool of delegates was most likely heavily supporters of Fischbach.
Also, the chair of the convention stated that if the delegate body sat the new 2024 delegates instead of the old ones, then he would rule the endorsing convention invalid. It appears this threat successfully stopped the body of delegates from moving forward, and the motion to only recognize the 2024 delegates was removed.
That move, perhaps, was enough to also make sure Steve Boyd did not win the endorsement on Satuday because the 2024 Otter Tail County faction appeared to be very supportive of Boyd’s campaign and they made up 37 delegates, or 10% of the overall vote. Boyd and Fischbach are now headed to the primary in August. The winner faces the Democrat candidate in the general election.
The new 2024 Otter Tail County delegates do still have a chance to be seated at the MNGOP state convention in May. On Saturday, the Congressional District 8 delegates passed a resolution in support of the new Otter Tail County delegates.
