Matt Little won the Democratic primary for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District on Tuesday, while Eric Pratt captured the Republican nomination in the same open race. The result sets up the next stage of a contest for a seat that Angie Craig has held since 2019.
Little’s victory matters now because the district is one of the few in Minnesota that both parties treat as a true fight, and Craig is leaving it behind to run for U.S. Senate. That made Tuesday less about a routine primary and more about which names would carry into the general election from a field that had drawn real attention on both sides.
For Little, the win also carried a clear message. In his victory statement, he pointed to $3.5 million in outside money and said it could not buy the election, then argued that voters were backing a broader change agenda. He tied that claim to familiar campaign themes, saying the result showed people wanted lower costs, accountability, and a break from Trump’s politics.
Little’s path helps explain why he was taken seriously in the first place. He was elected to the Lakeville City Council in 2010, became mayor of Lakeville the following year, won a seat in the Minnesota Senate in 2016 and lost reelection in 2020 to Republican Zach Duckworth. This time, he was one of three DFL contenders who had separated themselves as frontrunners, alongside Berg and Klein.
Berg brought his own record to the race after being elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2021 and representing Districts 56B and 55B. Klein, meanwhile, works at Mayo Clinic in internal medicine and holds the seat in Minnesota Senate District 53, which covers Washington County and northern Dakota County. The DFL contest gave voters three familiar names, but Little emerged with the nomination.
Pratt’s route was much simpler. He was unopposed after Tyler Kistner and Jeremy Westby dropped out, leaving him alone on the Republican side. In his statement, Pratt said the race was not about who could create the most noise, but about making life more affordable, protecting Minnesota families and bringing accountability back to government.
There is still a broader race behind the primary results. The general election for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District will decide who takes over the open seat, and it comes at a time when both parties see the district as closely contested. Little enters that fight after a hard-fought DFL primary, and Pratt goes in without having had to survive one.
