Jake Johnson

Jake Johnson earned a high school diploma from Stewartville High School and a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse in 2006. His career experience includes working as a teacher.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I grew up in Stewartville as one of 11 kids. My dad collected garbage and my mom went door to door reading gas meters. After my parents divorced, I helped my mom and my stepdad, a disabled Vietnam veteran, raise my younger siblings. We were poor. I worked hard to make it to the middle class, helped by a strong church community, great public school teachers, and programs like SNAP and Medicaid.

For the past 20 years I've taught high school math, covering everything from remedial math to AP Calculus, and I've twice received the state's highest recognition for math education. As a leader in my union, the Rochester Education Association, I served as Government Relations Coordinator and on three bargaining teams that improved wages and working conditions for more than 1,000 teachers, nurses, and counselors. I also served on the board of the Minnesota Jump$tart Coalition, which teaches financial literacy to kids.

My wife Molly is a paraprofessional who works with deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. We're raising four boys in Rochester, about 10 minutes from where I grew up, on a teacher's salary, so we feel the cost of groceries, utilities, housing, and healthcare every month.

This is my first political campaign. I'm a fiscally responsible Democrat – a Blue Dog endorsed by former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson – and I'll work with anyone to get things done. I don't take money from corporations, and I've held 21 public, in-person town halls.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Bring down costs. Groceries, gas, diesel, fertilizer, rent, electric bills, and health insurance cost way too much in southern Minnesota, and Washington is making it worse. Brad Finstad voted eight times to protect tariffs that cost the typical family $1,700 more per year; he voted six times against ending the Iran War that is driving up gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices; and he voted to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid that supports our rural clinics. I'll vote to end the tariffs and the war, take on health insurers and Big Pharma, cut red tape so we can build more homes and childcare, stop data centers from raising electric bills, and cut taxes for working families, paid for by closing corporate loopholes.Take on corruption. Finstad took $22,500 from Syngenta, a company owned by the Chinese government and a company the Pentagon affiliates with the Chinese military, that owns 411 acres of farmland in Goodhue County; and he voted against cracking down on foreign purchases of American farmland. I'm a math teacher and I believe the budget is an existential crisis, so I support a balanced budget amendment. The first item in my Taxpayer Protection Pledge is to get our fraud money back and to require prison time for everyone (including government officials) who broke the law related to Minnesota’s massive fraud scandals. And I have never taken a dime from corporations, and I'll vote to ban congressional stock trading and pass term limits.Invest in our small towns, not data centers. Finstad took nearly $40,000 from data center builders like Google, Dell, and Honeywell and from utilities like Xcel Energy, then voted for $83 billion in tax breaks for data center developers and for a bill that would have blocked state and local rules on AI and data centers for 10 years. I support a moratorium on new data centers until there are protections to ensure costs don’t go up, natural resources are protected, economic gains are realized locally, and NDAs are prohibited. I'll fight for a bipartisan farm bill, year-round E15, and full funding for our police departments and rural clinics. And I promise 21 in-person town halls every term. Finstad has held 0 in four years.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Restoring the American Dream is personal for me. My family was broke, but because we worked hard and had a community and government that invested in us, I was able to make it to the middle class. I want my kids and students to have the same opportunities. I care deeply about protecting SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, and veterans' benefits; passing a bipartisan farm bill for family farmers; keeping rural hospitals open; funding our small school districts; ending unnecessary wars and tariffs that raise prices at home; balancing the budget; and getting corporate money out of politics so Congress works for people again.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

Paul Wellstone, a teacher from southern Minnesota, who led a grassroots campaign all across the state.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Listening to people. How are you going to represent your constituents if you don't listen to them? That's why I'm hosting 21 in-person town hall meetings, one in every county, before the election and will continue to do that in every term I serve in Congress.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

Being an independent voice who doesn't take orders from party leaders or special interests. We need members of Congress that are willing to lose their seat and go back to their real jobs because they took tough votes in order to best serve the people of their district.

What legacy would you like to leave?

I want my four boys and thousands of former students to know that, when life started looking real tough and the American Dream was slipping away, I tried to do my part to stand up for our small towns and our way of life.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

Painting houses for my stepdad's small business.

What is something that has been a struggle in your life?

Growing up poor. I worked hard, and had the support of my community, and was able to make it to the middle class.

What qualities does the U.S. House of Representatives possess that makes it unique as an institution?

At its best, it can be the voice of the people and the most responsive to where the citizens of the United States are at. And ideally fosters collaboration. That is not what is happening right now, but the institution has the potential to do that -- and at points in history has actually been able to do that and address our nation's greatest challenges.

What do you perceive to be the United States' greatest challenges as a nation over the next decade?

The national debt is a massive problem that will only continue to grow if serious people from both parties can't get together and tackle it.

Do you believe that compromise is necessary or desirable for policymaking?

Absolutely. It is so desperately needed, and in short supply in Washington right now.

What organizations or individuals have endorsed your campaign?

I announced my grassroots campaign on April 17, 2025, before receiving any endorsements. Since then, I’ve been endorsed by Former Republican Governor Arne Carlson, Finstad's former Campaign Chair Gerald Woodley, Senator Tina Smith, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and 2025 MN Small Business Owner of the Year Beth Benike. As a 20-year union member myself, I’m proud to be endorsed by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 343, Laborers' International Union of North America MN & ND, United Steelworkers District 11, SEIU Minnesota, Machinists (IAM) MN State Council, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, AFGE, AFSCME, EdMN, National Education Association, and American Federation of Teachers.

What was the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember?

When I was 4, I remember the last out of the 1987 World Series. The Twins won.