Trina Swanson

ELY—Trina Swanson was met with applause at a Tuesday Group meeting this week when she promised to take Pete Stauber’s seat in the upcoming election for Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District.
Swanson focused on affordability and corruption throughout her speech, which was received positively by those in attendance. Swanson, originally from Hermantown, left her job at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) amid Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) interference before starting her own immigration law firm. Soon after, she decided to run for office. Now she is the DFL endorsed frontrunner in the Democratic primary set for Aug. 11.
Throughout the meeting, Swanson emphasized affordability as the backbone of her campaign. “It’s not left or right anymore, it is one percent versus 99 percent,” Swanson said, later adding, “We need a congress that supports the 99 percent.”
Before entering politics, Swanson worked as a public servant, first in Duluth’s bankruptcy court (where she worked during law school), then for USCIS. Over her 20 years with the service she worked in Germany, ran the USCIS office in Nairobi, Kenya, ran the USCIS office in Minneapolis, and spent three separate stints in Washington, D.C. It was during her final stint in Washington, and amid DOGE interference in her office, that she was asked to check on a visa for a nanny of a DOGE member who was working out of DHS. “Because immigration’s OK when it’s for them folks, but it’s not OK when it’s for the rest of us.” She promptly quit and started her own immigration law firm.
Swanson was inspired to run by economic struggles in her own life. After health issues forced her father to stop working, her family relied on her mother for health insurance. That was until Swanson’s mother had a sudden stroke, which cost her her job. “My parents found themselves having to go on Cobra and pay an incredible amount of money just to keep health insurance and ensure that she could get the treatment, she could go to rehab, she could get what she needed to recover from this stroke that was also an open heart surgery and a new heart valve and a pacemaker,” Swanson said. “Watching your parents go through that after working for decades and decades was a really hard thing to do.”
Swanson said she will fight for universal health care in Congress. She added that in the interim she would work to negotiate for lower drug prices with drug companies and work to ensure the enforcement of existing antitrust laws. She also hopes to cap the prices of life-saving drugs like insulin.
Swanson also garnered applause after stating, “we absolutely cannot allow mining to occur in our Boundary Waters watershed. Period.”
Mining in the area became central to her campaign after Pete Stauber passed H.J. Res. 140., which nullified an existing ban on mining in the Boundary Waters. In the wake of Stauber’s legislation, Twin Metals, which is owned by the Chilean mining company Antofagasta, proposed a mine situated on the edge of the Boundary Waters, which critics believe will pollute the area.
“We need a congress that’s willing to fight back,” Swanson said. “We need some of our agencies to step up and say no, to look at those leases and withdraw them and prevent them.”
Swanson expressed her support for unions. She said she was in a union during her time at USCIS and that she learned the value of unions when she saw what they brought to her family.
Throughout her speech Swanson promised to fight corruption in politics. She said money exerts too large an influence in politics and derided the Citizens United decision. She refuses corporate PAC donations. She suggested rank-choice voting and publicly funded races as possible solutions to a broken political system. “The system isn’t built for people like me,” Swanson said.
During a question-and-answer session, Swanson fielded a variety of questions from attendees. She affirmed her belief in science stating that trusting scientists and listening to experts is part of her platform. She said that we need to bring back our executive branch agencies that employed scientists.
In response to a question about women’s rights, Swanson said she would fight to provide women with the opportunities to live their lives as they see fit. She added that LGBTQ+ people are similarly under attack and that she would represent them in Congress as well.
In response to another question, she emphasized the importance of separating church and state. Swanson is Christian, but said in response to an attendee’s concern about Christian nationalism that she believes in acting with Christian values but keeping them separate from politics.
Near the end of the event, Swanson was asked whether her platform or beliefs conflict with those of democratic socialists currently dominating Democratic races in some parts of the county. Swanson said that some of her beliefs, such as support for universal health care are considered far left and added that strong coalitions are needed for electoral success. “We can’t make change if we don’t win,” she said.
Currently two other candidates remain in the Democratic primary, Luke Gulbranson and John Munter. Voting is set to take place Aug. 11 to decide on a Democratic candidate for the primary. In the Republican primary, Pete Stauber is running against Anthony Hamilton.
The general election will take place Nov. 3.