Joe Teirab was in eighth grade when he visited his dad’s village in Sudan for the first time. The huts with thatched roofs and farm animals wandering freely were an eye-opening experience for him.
“I remember they slaughtered a goat for us,” Teirab said. “It felt very much like: this is probably what people have done for thousands of years if someone came back after being gone for many, many years.”
Teirab’s dad grew up in “abject poverty,” and immigrated to the United States in the 1970s for college. He married a Minnesota woman with German and Norwegian roots, and together they raised Teirab and his brother in the rural southwestern Minnesota city of Windom. Teirab says he and his brother were two of three people of color in school in the 1990s and 2000s.
“That’s a dynamic that I think shapes you as a person,” Teirab said. “I think it would hopefully make me a kind of a different kind of person in Congress, especially as a Republican.”
Teirab is running to unseat Congresswoman Angie Craig to represent Minnesota’s Second Congressional District. Running for office for the first time, 37-year-old Teirab promotes himself as a fresh face and pragmatic choice for a district that could swing either way.
He’s a lifelong Republican who was executive director of Cornell University Republicans during his undergraduate years in the 2000s.
Craig, a moderate Democrat, has painted Teirab as inexperienced and out of touch with the district.
“While Joe Teirab has spent most of his time pointing fingers and complaining, Rep. Craig has focused on finding the concrete solutions needed to lowering costs for working families: making sure they can find cheaper gas options when they fill up their tanks, capping seniors’ insulin copays at $35/month and getting rid of federal taxes on Social Security,” Craig’s campaign spokesperson Katie Kelsh said in a written statement.
Teirab’s background includes a Harvard law degree, service in the U.S. Marines and work as a federal prosecutor. As an assistant U.S. Attorney, Teirab worked on cases involving drug trafficking, gang activity and government fraud in the Feeding Our Future case. He left the office last year to run for Congress.
The race promises to be the most closely watched Congressional races in Minnesota, and one of the more closely watched contests in the country, with possible implications for which political party wins or retains control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans currently hold a slim nine-seat majority.
The Second District, which encompasses the southern Twin Cities suburbs and extends into parts of rural southern Minnesota, contains “probably the only competitive Congressional race that’s going on right now,” said Michael Brodkorb, a former Minnesota Republican Party deputy chair who has lived in the district for 20 years.
The district was a Republican stronghold for most of the 2000s and part of the 2010s, when former Republican Congressman John Kline represented it for 14 years and won elections by comfortable margins. That started to change in 2016, when Craig first ran and narrowly lost to Congressman Jason Lewis, a Republican, by less than two points.
Craig was elected two years later, beating Lewis by just under five points, and has held onto the district ever since.
Craig’s closest reelection effort came in 2020, a presidential election year with former President Donald Trump on the ticket. Craig beat challenger Tyler Kistner that year by just over two percentage points.
Teirab is hoping that this election year, which once again features Trump on the ticket, will lead to another strong Republican turnout to put him over the top. Trump formally endorsed Teirab in the election, calling him a “terrific America First Candidate,” and Teirab backs Trump wholeheartedly.
But during a recent interview at his Burnsville campaign office, Teirab’s rhetoric bore little resemblance to Trump’s.
Teirab, for example, declined to define himself as a MAGA Republican.
”I’m a Republican who wants to help our country get back on track,” he said. “I don’t like labels.”
On immigration
Teirab described himself as the “proud son” of an immigrant, and recalled a childhood watching his dad compile, photocopy and fill out scores of immigration forms to help bring family members over to the United States.
“It was so cumbersome,” he said. “It took so much time.”
Teirab’s dad came to the United States in the 1970s on an education visa to study veterinary medicine at Kansas State University. He later obtained a PhD in microbiology at the University of Minnesota, and worked as an inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 30 years, inspecting meat-packing plants.
Teirab, a non-denominational Christian, said in his faith “there’s a sense of supporting the sojourner.”
“I think we can talk about the issue of immigration in a way that’s respectful when we’re not vilifying people who want to come here,” he said.
At the same time, Teriab said “there’s no semblance of law and order on the border,” which leads to “a power vacuum that empowers bad actors like the cartels who are now in control of the border.”
He supports funding more resources for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the deportation of some immigrants currently in the country illegally.
More funding for border patrol could provide resources to catch and turn away people who are crossing the border illegally, Teirab said, and give border agents more resources to process people seeking asylum in the United States. He also favors reinstituting Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy where asylum seekers would have to stay in Mexico as they await processing.
Teirab said he supports deporting undocumented immigrants who arrived here recently, but not those who’ve been here for a long time.
“I don’t think rounding up folks who have been here for 20 years is the right course of action,” he said.
He did not provide a clear definition of who should be considered recent immigrants eligible for deportation, though he said people who’ve come here illegally “in recent years” and under President Joe Biden’s administration should be eligible.
When asked whether he supports Trump’s pledge to conduct the biggest deportation program in the nation’s history, Teirab did not respond directly.
“If we’re going to expel folks who recently came here illegally, I don’t know if that would end up amounting to the largest deportation program in history,” he said. “Maybe it would.”
Craig has criticized Biden’s immigration record and emphasized that she voted multiple times with Republicans to condemn the Biden administration’s policies on the U.S.-Mexico border. She’s characterized Republicans, including Teirab, as unserious on the issue after Republican Senators killed a bipartisan border security bill over the summer following Trump’s criticism that such a bill would be a “gift” to Democrats.
“Angie believes the only way we make progress toward creating a fast and fair immigration system is by working together,” Kelsh said. “Last year, she visited the southern border with a group of her colleagues to speak with people on the ground about what was happening and how Congress could help.
“Since then, she’s worked with those same colleagues to help secure the resources, tools and support needed to bring order and safety to the border.”
On abortion
Craig has made Teirab’s history as an anti-abortion activist a campaign issue. Teirab spoke out against abortion as an undergraduate at Cornell University, and sits on the board of New Life Family Services, a pregnancy resource center that discourages women from obtaining abortions.
This featured most prominently in a TV ad with a female obstetrician gynecologist warning that Teirab would “let politicians ban abortion even in cases of rape, incest and in the event that the life of the mother is at risk.”
The ad, which KSTP-TV deemed as misleading, is based on Teirab’s answer to a question in a questionnaire from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, an anti-abortion group. The question reads, “Would you vote against any legislation that would weaken any pro-life law or policy that is in effect on the day that you are elected?”
Teirab marked yes.
Craig has emphasized that nearly half of all states have banned or restricted abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and that 10 states have completely banned abortion in all cases. Carig is the author of federal legislation that would legalize abortion nationally similar to the way it was for a half century under Roe v. Wade.
“What Joe has done is pledged to Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life that he will do nothing to stop those states from banning abortion even in the case of rape and incest,” Craig said in an October 4 debate with Teirab hosted by Minnesota Public Radio.
Craig also criticizes New Life Family Services for offering “abortion pill reversals,” among other things.
Teirab counters that while he’s against abortion personally, he has pledged to vote against any nationwide abortion ban of any kind should he be elected to Congress.
Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion is now a state issue and not a federal issue.
“I do think that there’s a difference between what the federal government’s role is and what the state government’s role is,” Teirab said.
One of his answers in the Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life questionnaire appears to contradict this stance. Teirab marked yes to a question asking, “Do you recognize a Federal role in protecting unborn children?”
Teirab told Sahan Journal that this stance amounts to his support of a federal role “in doing what we can to support adoption and foster care.”
He also marked yes to the question: “Would you vote for chemical abortion legislation related to restricting its use, supporting the collecting and reporting of data on complications, or increasing safeguards for women?”
The questionnaire was referring to medication like mifepristone and misoprostol which can be taken during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy to terminate a pregnancy. The medications make up the majority of abortions in the country.
Teirab told Sahan Journal he supports the last two points of the question — collecting and reporting data on complications and increasing safeguards for women regarding abortion medication — but not the first half of the question. He said he would vote against any restrictions on medicines that induce abortion.
Craig’s campaign said Teirab’s past activism against abortion rights means he can’t be trusted on the issue.
“He has spent his entire life working to get rid of abortion in this country — that doesn’t just conveniently change when there’s an election in a few weeks,” Kelsh said.
Activist Republicans cold to Teirab
Despite the district’s reputation as a swing district, Craig is in a strong position for reelection. She has raised more than three times the amount of money as Teirab — $6.1 million to $1.7 million — according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
And Craig has one thing that Teirab doesn’t, according to Brodkorb: complete support from her political party.
“Angie has everything working in unison to make sure, in unison, that she’s elected,” he said.
Teirab, on the other hand, does not have formal support from Minnesota Congressional District 2 Republicans. The district’s Republican Party was firmly behind Teirab’s primary challenger, Taylor Rahm, who ran to the right of Teirab.
Rahm was Republican Party activists’ preferred candidate, originally winning the state party endorsement by an overwhelming delegate vote of 74 percent to Teirab’s 25 percent.
Rahm dropped out of the race one month before the August primary to take a job with the Trump campaign. But Rahm’s name remained on the ballot, his campaign literature continued to be mailed out and some of his supporters kept Rahm lawn signs up through the primary. Ultimately, Teirab won the primary with 76 percent of the vote; Rahm earned 24 percent.
In the wake of the win, Teirab’s own district Republicans have still neglected to endorse him. Some Rahm supporters have said they don’t plan to vote for Teirab, calling him an establishment candidate. However, Joe Ditto, chair of Minnesota Congressional District 2 Republicans, said Teirab has not prioritized the endorsement.
“We attempted to take up the business of endorsement at our August meeting,” Ditto wrote in a text message to Sahan Journal. “However, Teirab was unable to attend so we removed the item from the agenda.”
Teirab said the lack of endorsement is “not a big deal.”
“There’s a small group of people who are part of that decision making process that obviously don’t reflect Republicans in the district,” Teirab said. “Because the Republicans overwhelmingly supported me to go against Angie Craig.”
Brodkorb, an anti-Trump Republican who has voted for Craig and who supports Democrat Kamala Harris for president, said it’s “astonishing” how local Republicans have treated Teirab.
“The leadership of the Second District Republicans are some of the most extreme members of the Republican Party that exist in this state,” Brodkorb said. “They think that they are Republicans in a congressional district in Alabama.”
Although Brodkorb is undecided on how he will vote for Congress, he spoke highly of Teirab and believes he can appeal to many voters in the district. Most of the district’s voters are not looking for a candidate who will align with Trump 100 percent of the time, he said.
“The challenge right now is that in a swing district like this, every bit of the machinery needs to be functioning together,” Brodkorb said. “And right now, I think the Democrats in the district are unified and excited around Angie Craig’s candidacy and the Republicans are somewhat still fractured.”
AK Kamara, a Republican National Committee member for Minnesota, said that Teirab may be an underdog in the race but that he is a strong candidate for the district.
“I am a pretty hardcore right wing ideological person,” Kamara said. “But I will support people who are not exactly that, because if they reflect the district that they’re in and and they’re able to win, that’s really what matters.”
