Jeff Ettinger concedes to Brad Finstad for second time this year in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District

(ABC 6 News) – Democratic challenger Jeff Ettinger lost Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District seat to Republican incumbent Brad Finstad on Tuesday night.

Ettinger lost the seat to Finstad for the second time this year. Ettinger ran against Finstad in a special election in August to fill the seat of the late congressman Jim Hagedorn (R), who died while in office in February 2022. Finstad won that race by a narrow margin.

RELATED: Brad Finstad wins U.S. House District 1 Special Election

Ettinger said this time around, “I thought we’d do better. Instead the margin is bigger. Ultimately, over 100,00 people in southern Minnesota voted for me and I’m very proud of the confidence they placed in me. I respect the system, and accept the results.”

Finstad received 159,573 votes to Ettinger’s 125,387 votes.

Ettinger was the CEO of Hormel Foods in Austin for about a decade and was hoping his business experience would serve him well in this race.

Ettinger says he doesn’t have any thoughts on running again in the future, but thanks his family and team for their hard work.

Meanwhile, Finstad said of Ettinger, “I spoke with Jeff Ettinger this evening and thanked him for a
hard-fought race. Although we have differing opinions, Jeff ran a strong campaign and I thanked him for his candidacy.”