Tag Archives: Paul Wikstrom

Election 2026: US House, District 4

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Such a delightfully straightforward race. On the ballot:

Betty McCollum (DFL)
Paul Wikstrom (Republican)

Betty McCollum is a solidly progressive Democrat. My main complaint about her is that she’s less fighty than she could be, as a Dem from a safe seat, but in general she votes the way I would like her to vote.

Paul Wikstrom is a Republican (which in itself is reason to vote against him). He’s a software engineering manager at Raytheon (per his LinkedIn), where he has worked for eight years. (Before that he worked for 17 years at Medtronic, so he’s someone who left the medical device industry to build weapons systems.)

His website talks about affordability but of course doesn’t blame any of the current issues on Trump’s tariffs or his pointless war on Iran. Instead, it suggests eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, and estates. (I would love to know, but am not inclined to do the math to figure out, how many more dollars would pass untaxed via an elimination of the estate tax vs. an elimination of taxes on overtime and tips. As it stands, the first $15 million of an estate is excluded from the estate tax already.)

He also talks a bunch about fraud and how it’s bad, so during the primary I sent him an e-mail to ask if he would support HR 7852 (the “No Getting Rich in Congress Act”) and HR 8309 (a law that would prevent Presidents from enriching themselves with public funds)? He did not respond.

I am going to vote for Betty McCollum, obviously!

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.) I raised $7,230 during primary season so I’ve raised the goal.

I also have a new book out! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven Books in signed copies.

Primary Election 2026: US House, District 4

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This is the seat currently held by Betty McCollum. On the DFL side of the ballot:

Betty McCollum
Aswar Rahman

On the Republican side:

Gene Rechtzigel
Paul Wikstrom
Paul Xiong

(Minnesota doesn’t require you to register as a party member to vote in primaries, but in any given primary, you have to pick one party and stick with it throughout. My friends who work as election judges have people who want to litigate this every single time. If you vote in more than one party’s races, you have spoiled your ballot.)

I live in St. Paul, so Betty McCollum is my US House Rep. She’s in the progressive wing of the Democratic party but is not as fighty as some of the other people in that part of the party (like Ilhan) if that makes sense. For example, she’s a long-standing critic of Israel (she’s literally one of the longest-standing supporters of Palestinian human rights in Congress) but sticks with moderate language while talking about Israel’s war crimes (she prefers the term “human rights abuses”).

My personal recent frustrations with Betty: she voted last week for the KIDS Act, which is an Internet censorship / age-verification bill. (There are a lot of problems with age-verification bills; one is that they’re basically data-exposure bills.) She voted last month for the “Combating Organized Retail Crime Act” bill, which expands the criteria where shoplifting can be federally prosecuted. (This bill is 100% a response to the claim that we’re in an “organized retail theft epidemic” which is just horseshit. Or possibly it’s 50% that, 50% an opportunity for the Feds to increase surveillance. Both are bad!) She’s a Democrat in a safe seat and did not have to vote for these.

Anyway, if you’re here because you are mad about these votes (or other things she’s done) and you want to cast a protest vote, and you just want to know if Aswar Rahman is evil: no, he’s not evil, you can totally vote for him if you want. ETA: HEY FRIENDS I’M BACK THREE DAYS AFTER I POSTED WITH SOME EXCITING NEW INFORMATION.

So there’s a lot I am going to need to add, but I’m just going to drop in a screen shot of the flyer his campaign apparently sent out last year.

A photo of a flyer. On the left side it says, "Aswar Rahman is challenging anti-Israel Rep. Betty McCollum in the MN CD4 Democratic Primary" and there's a photo of him in tie and vest. On the right side it says, "I need your help to defeat the most anti-Israel Democrat in Congress. My name is Aswar Rahman. I am a Minnesota Democrat, a businessman, a humanitarian serving Ukraine, and Betty McCollum's primary opponent. She's a 20-year incumbent of MN's 4th District who: * spent decades trying to restrict US aid to Israel, * branded supporters of the US-Israel alliance as members of "hate groups," * led the charge to deny Ukrainians the weapons they need to defend themselves and win the fight. It's time for McCollum to go. If you help me, I will defeat her in the Democratic primary, and be a champion for America's democratic allies.

Needless to say, nothing like this is on his website now. (He now has the following, under Gaza: “I strongly support halting arms supplies to Israel, mandating war crimes investigations for the Netanyahu regime, and replacing the corrupt ‘Board of Peace’ with a UN-led coalition to path the way for democratic elections and Palestinian statehood.”

Anyway I’m putting that up top because honestly, that’s all a lot of people will need to know. You can stop reading and go vote for Betty (or, if you’re Team Israel, for Aswar.) I’ll be back with more edits in a bit, I’m now returning you to the original post and also nesting it under a cut for the convenience of people scrolling my site; this got long.

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