Despite the hoopla created by a high-profile, aggressive opponent -- or maybe because of it -- U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar held on to his usual mega-majority of votes for U.S. Congress in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District in Tuesday's election.
Campaign operatives and pundits had expected former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams to give Oberstar his closest run in 17 elections. But that didn't happen, and Grams in fact fared little better than his Republican predecessors, despite spending much more money.
Grams spent about $500,000 on the campaign; Oberstar about $1.4 million.
Oberstar landed 64 percent of the vote, about where he usually ends up in the DFL-leaning district. But he also won in every county, even in the conservative portions of the district's southern range. In Wadena County, where Grams had his best showing, Oberstar still got 49.7 percent of the vote to Grams' 49.5 percent -- even though Republicans Tim Pawlenty and Mark Kennedy won there.
In his stronghold St. Louis County, Oberstar landed almost 74 percent of the vote.
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On Wednesday, Oberstar attributed his continued success to 8th District voters rejecting not only what he called Grams' "negative, misleading" campaign but also Grams' record as a conservative U.S. senator and congressman in the 1990s.
"The bad news when this campaign started was that a lot of people knew who Rod Grams was. The good news is that a lot of people knew who Rod Grams was," Oberstar said Wednesday as he basked in the election victory.
Grams' showing of 34.4 percent was in line with other recent Republicans but fell short of the largest vote against Oberstar in 1992, when Republican Phil Herwig landed 29 percent of the vote and "Perrot Choice" candidate Harry Welty of Duluth landed 8 percent, for a combined 37 percent.
On Tuesday night, Grams defended his campaign strategy to highlight Oberstar's long stint in office and the region's decline in jobs during that period.
On Wednesday night, Grams said a 2008 run was not in his plans. "I thought I had retired once, and I might have retired again," he said, adding that he'll remain active in politics, if not as a candidate.
Grams was surprised by Oberstar's overwhelming victory, especially because of the reception he received from people during campaign stops.
"I thought we'd have a much better showing than we did," he said, noting that his message may have reached more people if Oberstar had agreed to more debates.
Staff writer Jana Hollingsworth contributed to this report.
