Finstad Won This Seat by 17 Points. He’s Down 321 Votes and Calling a Recount.

Brad Finstad won southern Minnesota’s 1st District by 17 points two years ago. On Thursday he said he will take Minnesota’s free recount — down just over 300 votes to a first-time Democrat.

Associated Press unofficial returns, as reported by WKBT/News8000, put Democrat Jake Johnson at 163,059 and Finstad at 162,738 — a 321-vote gap, under one-tenth of one percent. The Associated Press has not called the race. Johnson declared victory Wednesday in Rochester anyway.

Finstad’s written statement, released to local outlets Thursday, said the unofficial margin was “just over 300 votes, less than 0.1%, one of the smallest margins in the entire country.” Minnesota law, he noted, “provides for a standard recount when the margin is less than 0.25%.” The race, he said, is “less than one-half of that threshold.”

“We will allow the recount process to proceed and await the results,” Finstad wrote. “We will work to ensure that the full process established under state and federal law is followed, so that every vote is counted in an accurate and transparent manner as we move toward a final determination of the results.”

A Trump +12 seat, overnight

This was not supposed to be a coin flip. In 2024, Finstad beat Democrat Rachel Bohman 220,929 to 156,375 — 58.51% to 41.41%, a 64,554-vote margin — per the U.S. House Clerk’s certified totals. Donald Trump carried the same district by about 12 points that year, 55.1% to 43.1%.

Cook Political Report had rated the seat Likely Republican heading into Tuesday. Johnson, a Rochester high-school math teacher in his first run for office, still leads by a few hundred votes with every precinct reporting.

Johnson’s campaign manager, Nik Marda, said in a written statement that “all precincts have reported and counted their legal votes,” that Johnson is “up by over 300 votes,” and that the campaign has “no doubt that Jake has won this election.”

The free recount is not automatic

Minnesota does not trigger recounts on its own. Under Minnesota Statutes § 204C.35, a candidate for a congressional office may demand a publicly funded manual recount when the margin is less than one-quarter of one percent of the votes counted for that office. The request is due by 5:00 p.m. on the second day after the State Canvassing Board certifies the results. That board meets Nov. 19.

Secretary of State Steve Simon told MPR the recount is a county-by-county hand count that the public can watch and record, with both campaigns present, before the canvassing board certifies again. A certified recount can still be contested in court.

Minnesota’s last famous federal recount — Norm Coleman vs. Al Franken in 2008 — flipped a 215-vote election-night lead into a 312-vote Franken win after months of litigation. A few hundred votes is thin enough to hand-count. It is not thin enough to call the seat decided.

What to watch: the Nov. 19 canvass, Finstad’s formal written request within 48 hours after it, and whether any hand-count shifts a 321-vote race in a district Trump won by 12.