Report: GOP Recruited Weed Candidate To Help Defeat Angie Craig

MINNESOTA — Before his death in September, Legal Marijuana Now Party candidate Adam Weeks told a friend that Republicans recruited him into the Second District race in order to "pull votes away" from Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, according to a report in The Minnesota Star Tribune.

Weeks detailed the plan in a May 20 voicemail message acquired by the Tribune, the newspaper reported Tuesday. The plan was to reduce Craig's vote total so that Republican challenger Tyler Kistner would win, according to the Tribune's reporting.

In 2016, Craig narrowly lost to Republican Jason Lewis. In 2018, Craig handily defeated Lewis, denying him a second term.

According to the recording of Weeks, Craig owed her victory to the lack of a third-party candidate, and that was something the Republicans wanted to change in 2020.

But the date of the U.S. House election was thrown into question when Weeks died.

Election uncertainty

Per state law, a special election would be held in February, Secretary of State Steve Simon confirmed following Weeks' death. However, Craig's campaign filed a lawsuit Sept. 28 in order to prevent a delay.

Her campaign argued that Minnesota's law on special elections conflicts with federal law. On Oct. 9, a federal judge ruled in Craig's favor, granting an injunction and forcing the election back to the original date of Nov. 3. And on Friday, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion from Kistner to delay the election int0 2021.

Kistner says he is appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.

The Tyler Kistner campaign did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment