Democrats just suffered another blow in Minnesota
Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) announced Friday that he will retire from Congress at the end of his term, putting yet another Democratic congressional seat in Minnesota into play in the 2018 midterm elections, Politico notes.
Nolan's retirement forces Democrats to defend a seat in a district President Trump won in 2016 with 54 percent of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 39 percent. Nolan, meanwhile, squeaked out a victory that year by only a little more than 2,000 votes.
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Clinton won Minnesota overall by just 1.5 percentage points in 2016 — hardly a confidence boost for Democrats. Still, Nolan struck an optimistic note in the statement announcing his resignation, saying that his district had "a number of highly qualified people" and predicting that "with hard work and broad base of support, one of them … will serve with distinction in the next Congress." Nolan served two non-consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, the first from 1975-1981 and the second beginning in 2013.
Read his full statement below. Kelly O'Meara Morales
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