CSB/SJU professor runs for State Senate

Long before he had received endorsements from former President Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; long before his campaign had yet received national attention, Aric Putnam found himself facing a familiar question.

Should he give it another shot?

SJU communications professor Aric Putnam is running against Republican incumbent Jerry Relph for State Senate District 14. This district includes St. Cloud and nearby Waite Park, St. Augusta, Minden and Haven.

This election is not Putnam’s first campaign for political office. Previously, Putnam ran for the State House of Representatives District 14A in 2016. District 14A is half of the Senate district Putnam is
currently pursuing. “14A includes St. Augusta so it’s got more rural voters and people who are more invested in more rural issues. St. Augusta is also ideologically very consistent,” Putnam said.
“The rest of St. Cloud is a little bit more complicated, and the same thing is true of the B side, whereas you have St. Cloud itself, and then you have a couple kind of rural areas that are attached to it that have different politics. Those areas – those rural areas – have lately, I think, been feeling a bit out of step with the rest of central Minnesota, even though they aren’t.”

These different views and ideologies, and perceptions of difference, create an interesting political situation.

“It’s one of the things I think people are worried about. It’s part of the complexity of the area I think, is how I would put it,” Putnam said of these differences. He did not plan to enter politics before he
launched his previous campaign, which he began in May 2016, after the person previously slated to run for the seat dropped out. After the drop out, Putnam soon fielded calls encouraging him to run. His response, however, was unique.

“So I got a call because some people knew of me because of my volunteer work and the work that I had done with non-profits in the community. So, because of that work someone called me and said ‘dude, you should run for office’ and I so said ‘Meh, I guess so,” Putnam said. His campaign, especially due to its unexpectedness, was an uphill battle.

“We didn’t even knock a single door until after 4th of July. We didn’t have time to be a real campaign. I mean, we had great friends and great volunteers who got involved, but we just didn’t have the time or the capacity to mount a real strong campaign,” Putnam said. Due to these factors, and the strong Republican base in the district, Putnam lost his first election.

Giving it another shot: Shifting forward to 2018, Putnam’s appetite for political office had been rediscovered. “One of the things that put me over the edge to run in 2018 is my good friend who was a former student of mine at St. Ben’s. We got to talking about what a great learning experience it would be and what good we could do if we ran for office together and she became our campaign manager, and she still is,” Putnam said.

This was the beginning of his second race.

“Normally, we should have been expected to do a little bit worse than we did in 2016 because there was no President on the ballot. So to move four points in that direction [to 48% of the electorate] in an off year was pretty phenomenal – to almost win. We actually did win the whole district, except for St. Augusta,” Putnam said.

After that campaign’s relative success, even if it did not culminate in a St. Paul office, energized the team to try again.

Why Putnam is running: “I just wanted to keep doing this. There’s something about politics that you have the latitude to do it with the integrity that you want to do it with. You don’t always get that when you are doing things in other kinds of institutions,” Putnam said.

“So, that’s part of why we did it a third time, not just because we are supposed to win. That’s not it at all.”

Of course, Putnam’s reasons for running are not solely apolitical.

“I’m not a sideline sitter. Things are wrong, they need to be fixed, and I’m going to do something about it. That’s the most basic thing,” Putnam said.

“You have to acknowledge that one of the reasons why you are running is because you think you can do the job better than the person who is doing it now.”

Specifically, Putnam seeks to provide better leadership for local residents.

“[The GOP Senate] voted against things that they believe in just because Democrats brought them up – like the Veterans’ Restorative Justice Act,” Putnam said. “For me, sure it’s about policies, but it’s also about public leadership.

Endorsements coming in: Recently, Putnam received former President Barack Obama’s endorsement. Out of hundreds of candidates running for Minnesota offices, only seven earned his endorsement.

“The fact that he thought this was a race that matched his values and was important enough for him to put on his list is pretty cool,” Putnam said.

Putnam did not speak to Obama, nor did he apply for an endorsement. In fact, he found out about the endorsement from a Twitter post. Although it’s likely Obama did not personally make the decision and it’s likelier a staffer did the research for him, the endorsement is still encouraging for Putnam’s campaign staff.

“It still does show that people who are cool care about what happens here. That’s what I think is most important,” Putnam said. “Everyone who follows politics knows how important this race is. This is one of the three most important races in the state – period, at any level.”

Several other seats are polling as likely GOP to DFL flips this election, freeing up attention and
energy for Putnam’s race.

“Normally for a race like this you have one or two people, we have 14 [paid workers],” Putnam
said.

Since Obama’s endorsement, the Biden/Harris campaign has also endorsed Putnam. Putnam
has received mixed reactions since these endorsements, with some supporters sending positive
messages and others implying he must be desperate to receive high-level endorsements for a
state office. However, Putnam believes these endorsements have broader consequences than the local political scene.

“I think that the biggest impacts of [these] endorsements isn’t going to be in St. Cloud, it’s going to be in the rest of the state and the rest of the country when people send us fundraising support out of the
blue,” Putnam said. “Not just fundraising support, that sounds too mercenary, you just get more
attention when something like that happens. That attention locally I think is going to even out, but the attention outside of the area I think is going to be pretty positive.”

The meaning of local elections: “I never knocked a door before I did so for myself which is something I’m not especially proud of,” Putnam said. “When you’re involved in politics locally you get to build relationships and you get to learn a lot. You have massive impact because every vote that’s encouraged at the local level actually matters at the federal level too.”

Participating in local elections influences federal level politics and provides opportunities that aren’t feasible in higher-level elections.

“Everyone who works with us knows me really well and hangs out with me all the time,”
Putnam said. “That’s not the case if you’re running for Congress or Senate or Governor. You can’t just like sit down and talk political strategy with your candidate unless you’re doing this local
stuff.”

That direct engagement is the magic that keeps Putnam interested in politics.

“For me, that’s a big part of why I’m doing it too is because I can sit down and you can have that kind of a conversation about encouraging other people to become more civically engaged with candidates and the people that have different spheres of knowledge and influence,” Putnam said. “You can do that locally.”