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Subscribe to RSSMINNEAPOLIS – Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the Tea Party champion and failed Republican presidential nomination candidate, secured a fourth term by winning a very tight race for re-election against Democrat challenger businessman Jim Graves early on Wednesday.
Bachmann led Graves by 3,256 votes - or just under one percentage point - out of more than 351,000 votes cast in the Minnesota 6th Congressional District with 98.2 percent of precincts reporting, according to unofficial state elections returns.
In a statement released to NBC News, the Congresswoman said: "It has truly been an honor and a privilege to represent the people of Minnesota's Sixth District in Congress, and I am humbled that they have placed their trust in me for another term.
"I pledge to continue to work everyday to create jobs and do everything I can to make life more affordable for Minnesota's families. Our children and grandchildren deserve a future filled with opportunity in a country that is safe and secure, and that's what I'm fighting for in Washington."
A champion of Tea Party backers of smaller government and conservative on social issues such as abortion and gay rights, Bachmann was running in what has been regarded as the most conservative-leaning district in Minnesota.
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
A look at the political life of the third-term Minnesota congresswoman who's running for the GOP nomination.
Her bid for the Republican presidential nomination until early in 2012 raised her name recognition nationally, but left her vulnerable to accusations by Graves that she was not representing district interests.
Her remarks, including an insistence on a link between an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Muslim Brotherhood, were denounced by some in her own party.
Bachmann, a former Minnesota state senator, has never won more than 53 percent of the vote in the district and won by only 3 percentage points in the last presidential election year of 2008.
The redrawing of districts after the 2010 census put Bachmann, who lives in Stillwater near the Minnesota border with Wisconsin, outside of the sprawling district that takes in suburbs to the east, north and west of Minneapolis and St. Paul and stretches northwest to include farms and smaller cities.
Friday's Deep Dive features NBC's Luke Russert giving a special look at Michelle Bachmann's uphill reelection battle for her House seat in Minnesota. MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, Republican strategist Phil Musser, and The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus also join the discussion.
It was the nation's most expensive House race in terms of both money raised and spent by the candidates as of mid-October, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The candidates had raised a total of $22.7 million and spent $20.8 million, the center reported, but Bachmann had outspent Graves by more than 12-to-one.
Bachmann sought to tag Graves, founder of the AmericInn hotel chain and now the head of Graves Hospitality, as a supporter of President Barack Obama's health reform law in television ads early in the campaign.
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's attacks against an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prompted Sen. John McCain to denounce her from the Senate floor on Wednesday. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
Later Bachmann commercials portrayed the congresswoman as focused on the needs of district residents and able to work across party lines to reach goals.
Graves, who describes himself as fiscally conservative, has said there are positives in the Obama healthcare program, but the "heavy lifting" has not yet begun. Graves also has said he believes Bachmann has been ineffective as a congresswoman.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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She rails against the evils of sharia law and then invokes her own cult-like religious beliefs to guide her own legislative agenda. It makes me wonder what people of her district are thinking. Good luck to you all... you'll need it.
You need wonder no longer. The people who elected her stopped thinking entirely many years ago.
What a shame! Wish she had lost so that we wouldn't see her and idiot Trump ever on internet or TV.
Well, I have to say Wisconsin voters are not the brightest either. At LEAST we don't have that jackass Tommy Thompson to worry about. But the state senate races in the northern part of the state went to two who are pro-mining. What are people thinking? This entire area lives on tourism and our clear, clean waters and they want to bring in fracking and iron mining to the headwaters of the state. One of them, Tom Tiffany, made his money off tourism with scenic boat trips on the willow flowage and Wisconsin river, pointing out the wildlife along the way. Does this make any sense?
That would have been the icing on the cake, but I guess we can't be greedy.
Bachmann is nutty as a fruitcake. MN just needed another 2,000 voters to see the light.
6th district. Not "Minnesota".
I love how Democrats participate in poitical discourse. Calling names and no substance. I also noticed how the American People know what O didn't do or did and how dismal his performance was and still voted for him. The post on this thread seem very hyprocritical with no substance whatsoever. I thought Liberals were compassionate? The postives out of this election is when the economy continues to tank (see fiscal cliff) and the money runs out maybe Liberals will start to vote using logic rather than emotion -- or just riot-- probably just riot.
Sorry Compassion, Ol' Buddy -
You just can't fix STUPID!!!!
YES, Letterman, Leno, Maddow, Stewart, Colbert, et al. - there is a Santa Claus!!!!
Wow Minnesota - REALLY????????
You're a riot!
I guess her election epitomizes what the republican party stood for...ignorance, hate and hypocrisy. Thankfully she is far away from our politics in california so we can enjoy her warped sense of thinking from safe distance.
I bet her husband is at lane bryant picking out a gown for the inauguration as we speak.
For her or himself? Hard to tell who wears the pants in that relationship behind closed doors.
She prefers pant suits....he loves chiffon....need i say more?
And the color lavender.
The redrawing of districts after the 2010 census put Bachmann, who lives in Stillwater near the Minnesota border with Wisconsin, outside of the sprawling district that takes in suburbs to the east, north and west of Minneapolis and St. Paul and stretches northwest to include farms and smaller cities.
The candidates had raised a total of $22.7 million and spent $20.8 million, the center reported, but Bachmann had outspent Graves by more than 12-to-one.
There are the two primary reasons this dingbat got re-elected. More rural folk, who probably make Backmann look like Einstein, and the amount of money the GOP put behind her.
Get out and vote people. Know nothing voters can get motivated to go to the polls over anything. You might think she's so stupid, who would support her. But do you think stupid voters are going to be motivated by facts and smart politics? They vote for their own kind.
Wow. Rural folks are just idiots, eh? Sounds like there may be another idiot around here.
Not all of them. But when you watch polling on many topics, topics they've been fed right-wing lies about that have time and again been proven to be false, it's these people more than any other demographic that's stuck on stupid.
Ask them did Iraq have anything to do with 9-11.
Ask them if the president is Muslim.
Where will you find most of the birthers?
Who yells about smaller government and wants government control over your personal decisions and sex life.
Who can make the flap they have about abortion, and then also try to limit access to contraception and be totally opposed to sex education.
I could go on and on, but I think I've proved my point.
Come on Minnesota, Bachmann? I know you can do better than that. Work on it. 2014 will be here before you know it. The Tea Party is on it's last leg.
C'mon Colorado. Minnesota just switched the state legislature from red to blue. How did the nation do with that? How is Colorado doing with that? Can you say "Colorado Springs"? Tell you what Colorado. Maybe you can comment about what you know about and stay out of Minnesota.
I was hoping that the folks in her district in MN would remove her. Graves seems like a reasonable guy. Nevertheless, I hope the folks from her district ask - "WHAT HAS MICHELE BACHMANN DONE TO MAKE OUR COUNTRY BETTER" - before they burden the Congress, the airwaves, and the country again!!
I'm a Minnesotan ~ I don't live in her district but I'm very dismayed this woman seems to have won again. Hey 6th District, what's the deal? Hasn't she shot her mouth off enough to take a second look at someone else? For certain, she is an embarrassment to MN every time she opens her mouth and manages to screw up whatever it is she's trying to say.
The bad news is that Minnesota appears to be populated with idiots. And the good news is that it isn't, and she'll be ousted next time.
Stay on the east coast then. We don't need you here.
You folks in Minnesota have little room to criticize any other election results following the re-election of Michele Bachman. WTF is wrong with you?
I also agree on the Nancy Pelosi comment... that something is wrong in California too.
That's right. The 6th district is ALL of Minnesota. BTW - we just switched our legislature from red to blue. How did the rest of the nation do with that?
frmrmine - your information is incorrect; there is more than one district in MN. I live in Minneapolis and she was not on my ballot.
She hasn't won, yet. Ahead by fewer than a thousand votes and counting still continues. May trigger an automatic recount.
Another Tea Party darling that should have fallen.
That's a shame. Bachmann is a joke and another stooge of the Koch brother's manufactured Tea Party "movement."
too bad for Minnesota.
I lived in Minnesota all my life, until the last few years and cannot believe the Minn I grew up in has voted this idiot in again. She is so hateful and a lying POS. What the hell were the people in her district thinking? Obviously they were not thinking. Truely a shame they voted this fool in again.
Like the Immaculate Conception some things just defy explanation.
Good for Bachmann, too bad for West (well, not officially yet as of this comment). The two best Reps in the House, Bachmann and West. We are still tortured being stuck with Pelosi.
Too bad. I was really hoping we'd get rid of this whack job. At least we got rid of West, Walsh and Brown. And now we know where the brain damage is in Minnesota.
Minnesota what is wrong with you people, Look up the word stupid and you will see her face.
There is going to be a re-count.
Well, you can't win them all. I guess you have to have someone like Bachman around for the example of stupidity in Congress but then again, the are 434 more examples in the house.
HOW did this whackjob get another term - WOW!
Personally, I think she makes Palin look sensible.
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