ShareThisWASHINGTON - Emerging from a failed presidential campaign, Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann said on Wednesday that she would carry on her political cause by returning to Congress and running for re-election this year.
"I am very thrilled to be in the position that I am today, and I am looking forward to continuing," Bachmann said.
But the three-term congresswoman will face a new hurdle in her bid for a fourth term. Bachmann's fast-growing suburban district must shed tens of thousands of residents under once-a-decade redistricting. A court ruling next month on Minnesota's new congressional boundaries could significantly alter Bachmann's district. One proposal put forward by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party would pit her against Rep. Betty McCollum, a veteran St. Paul Democrat.
"Obviously we'll see what happens with these (redistricting) maps ... But I do intend to run again," Bachmann said.
Although Minnesota Republicans have largely left the field open for her in the Sixth District -- at least publicly -- Bachmann faces other potential obstacles. A prodigious fundraiser in Congress, she burned through money in her seven-month presidential campaign faster than she could raise it. She had no funds for a significant ad buy in Iowa, a state crucial to her White House bid. Political observers will watch closely next week when federal campaigns release their year-end financial reports to see Bachmann's financial status.
Bachmann also dismissed a recent poll that found a majority of Minnesotans said she should step down. Voters in her district "are very positive about the service that I've given them," she said.
Bachmann rejected any suggestion that her presidential bid, heavily focused on her Iowa roots, might have damaged her prospects in Minnesota. "What people recognize is that I've worked extremely hard on their behalf," she said.
Democrats have attacked Bachmann for her frequent absences from Congress and for a long string of missed votes as she pursued the GOP nomination for president.
"Michele Bachmann has done absolutely nothing for the people of Minnesota's Sixth District in the last year," state DFL Chairman Ken Martin said on Wednesday. "Since September 2011, she has missed over 90 percent of the votes in Congress. Instead, she was flying around the country and catering to her tea party friends as part of her failed bid for president."
Bachmann, 55, took the Republican establishment by storm with a tea party- fueled insurgency that gave her an unexpected victory in August's Iowa straw poll. But she struggled after that, and when she placed last in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, Bachmann ended her campaign.
Since then, Bachmann has laid low, leading to speculation that she might aim at a U.S. Senate run, either against Klobuchar, who faces re-election this year, or against Democrat Al Franken, whose term ends in 2014.
Bachmann's decision to run for re-election came a day after a Public Policy Polling survey found that 57 percent of Minnesotans held an unfavorable view of her compared with 34 percent who viewed her favorably. The survey said 37 percent said she should run again while 57 percent said she should not.
(Contact Kevin Diaz, a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau, at kdiaz(at)startribune.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Editors: This story is for print use only. Must credit Minneapolis Star Tribune
