Theis, Putnam Ready for Rematch in Minnesota House Race

ST. CLOUD -- The candidates running for House District 14A were invited to be on the News @ Noon Show on Friday. Democrat Aric Putnam is challenging incumbent Republican Tama Theis once again this year.

Putnam lost this race two years ago by about 10 percentage points. He says he didn't get the call to run for the seat until June last time, which made for a short campaign.

We really only ran a campaign for 2 1/2 to 3 months.  When we did it it was just me and my friend Debbie doing all the work.  We were brand new to it and we learned so much.  And we still did better than any Democrat had ever done in the district.

Putnam says when he is out door knocking education is one of the top issues residents want to talk about.

And that's made more complicated when we get sometimes misleading statements by our current legislators about how hard they supposedly worked for education when in reality we all know our schools are struggling.

Putnam is a professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University.

House District 14A includes the west and southwest parts of St. Cloud along with St. Augusta. The general election is coming up on November 6th.

Tama Theis was invited to be on the show with Putnam on Friday but was unable to attend.