2026 Election: U.S. House Minnesota’s 2nd District

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We talked with Matt Little and Eric Pratt, the two candidates running for the Minnesota 2nd District U.S. House seat. Our candidate questionnaire covers priorities, the economy, immigration response, Congressional oversight, and more.

• More: See our full voter’s guide for information on other local races.

Race profile: U.S. representatives are elected to a two-year term. The 2nd District includes Dakota County, Scott County, Le Sueur County, and portions of Washington County and Rice County. This race is an open seat because incumbent Angie Craig is not seeking reelection.

Who’s running:

• Matt Little – DFL – A former state senator and Lakeville mayor, Little owns a law firm representing seniors and those with disabilities who have been hurt by negligence or abuse.
• Eric Pratt – GOP – A state senator first elected in 2012 and previously a Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board member, Pratt is retired after 30 years in financial services.

Editor’s note: Both candidates missed our deadline for candidate responses, but we’re including them anyway to be helpful to voters.

Candidate Questions

We asked the candidates a series of six questions and asked them to respond in 250 words or less. The questions cover priorities, the economy, immigration, Congressional oversight, healthcare, and preserving democracy.

Priorities: What are your two to three top priorities as a statesenator/representative and how will you address those issues and actually accomplish something?

Matt Little: Affordability, fighting corruption, and guaranteeing health care as a right. The American dream is slipping away. From housing and health care to child care, college, and groceries, prices have risen faster than income for decades. The problem isn’t a lack of resources. It’s an excessive concentration of power and wealth. I’ll fight to build more housing of every type, permanently expand the Child Tax Credit, establish universal pre-K, and make the richest Americans pay their fair share. These are the first steps to bringing power back to working people.

Second, our White House is corrupt. It is not okay to accept a Qatari jet in exchange for favorable trade deals, sell Memecoin for facetime with the president, or pardon crypto-fraud billionaires. I believe we need to pass the most sweeping and strict anti-corruption laws in American history–banning stock trading by members of Congress, closing the resolving door, and requiring the President to divest into a blind trust. I don’t take corporate PAC money, and I never will.

Third, health care should be a right, not a privilege for the wealthy. Since 2001, the top health care companies have spent 95% of their profits not to make Americans healthy, but to enrich their CEOs and stockholders. I support Medicare for All, which the CBO estimates would save our system $650 billion per year.

Eric Pratt: My priorities are the priorities CD2 residents have shared with me.

Families are struggling with the cost of living. Government should stop making life more expensive, and families should keep more of what they earn. A child tax credit, like the one I authored and passed in the Senate, will help parents manage the cost of raising children.

We need more housing and fewer barriers to development. Streamlined federal permitting can help communities build faster, making homes and rents more affordable. Increased domestic oil production and refining will lower energy costs and strengthen our energy security.

We must also open new markets for our farmers and businesses by pursuing pro-growth policies that help American companies compete globally, increase supply, lower prices, create jobs, and expand opportunity.

Washington must control spending and demand accountability for every taxpayer dollar. On the school board, we turned a $1 million debt into a $3 million surplus. In the Legislature, I helped move Minnesota from a $250 million deficit to an $18 billion surplus. Those results required knowing the numbers and making disciplined decisions. I’ve proposed a Congressional Program Integrity Office to address the estimated $250 billion in fraud across federal programs. We must strengthen oversight and ensure programs deliver measurable results.

Finally, Congress must function better. I’ll bring the same approach I’ve used in the Minnesota Senate: practical legislation, measurable results, bipartisan cooperation, and problem-solving over political theater.

Economy: What will you do as a legislator to help with rising costs and concerns about the economy?

Eric Pratt: Congress cannot control every price, but it can help create the conditions for families and businesses to thrive. I support stable taxes and regulations so businesses can invest, hire and grow. We would expand reliable American energy production, as I proposed in my A+ Energy bill, train people for tomorrow’s jobs, and remove unnecessary barriers to starting a business.

In the MN Senate, I worked on legislation to expand apprenticeships, remove barriers to employment, and help people return to work after life-altering events. Opportunity grows when more Minnesotans can put their skills to work.

We also have to confront federal spending and debt. Government must live within its means while making smart investments that strengthen the economy.

On the school board, I eliminated debt and then expanded opportunities for students including an immersion school and STEM education in every building. When people told us that it had never been done before, I simply said “Let’s be the first.”

Matt Little: America’s in the grip of a dual crisis: the widening chasm of wealth inequality and an affordability emergency reshaping daily life for working families. These problems are not separate. They are two sides of the same coin. The excessive concentration of wealth at the top creates and sustains the affordability crisis at the bottom and middle. The top 1% now controls nearly a third of all national wealth–roughly equal to the entire bottom 90% combined–while the average household spends about $14,800 more per year than in 2020 just to maintain the same standard of living.

My premise is simple: if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to afford a decent life for you and your family. So I’ll fight to build more housing of all types and close the four-million-home shortage at its roots; permanently expand the Child Tax Credit and child subsidies and establish universal pre-K; cap student loan interest; and protect every worker’s right to organize, because strong unions raise wages for union and non-union workers alike.

And I’ll reject the reckless tariffs that hurt farmers, construction workers, and manufacturers. Trump’s tariffs are essentially a tax on imported goods, and they’ve driven costs up for all Americans, but particularly our farmers. I’ll pursue smarter trade that opens markets for Minnesota products.

Immigration: Did you support the increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minnesota earlier this year? What, if any, immigration reform do you support?

Matt Little: I oppose the unconstitutional actions of ICE officers in Minnesota – brutalizing Americans first and asking questions later, failing to present warrants, and acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Operation Metro Surge deployed over 4,000 masked federal agents into the Twin Cities and left death in its wake. Two American citizens were fatally shot, businesses in immigrant neighborhoods lost 50-80% of revenue, schools went into lockdown, and Minneapolis police logged over 3,000 overtime hours in three days cleaning up after agents who operated without accountability.

This had little to do with finding “the worst of the worst”. A federal judge found ICE violated at least 86 court orders in Minnesota this year, and three-quarters of those arrested had no criminal record.

I support the ICE Bill of Rights, which includes cutting ICE funding to pre-Trump levels, and replacing ICE with a lawful federal immigration agency that Americans can trust, banning masked agents, requiring agents to identify themselves and present a warrant of probable cause; notify families and attorneys where people are held, and launch a full congressional investigation into these abuses.

Immigrants are a greate competitive advantage for Minnesota. My wife, Coco, is living proof. She came here at age ten knowing two words of English. Now, she’s a lawyer. That’s the American dream, full circle. I’ll fight for legal pathways to citizenship, guarantee due process for all, and fund legal counsel for everyone swept up in Trump’s inhumane, retaliatory abuse of power.

Eric Pratt: America can secure its border, enforce immigration law, and insist that government follow the Constitution. Compassion, order, and public safety are not conflicting goals.

America is still the place where people from around the world dream of building a better life. We should honor that tradition with a legal immigration system that is orderly, efficient, and fair to those who follow the rules, while meeting the workforce needs of our communities and economy.

We need to stop illegal crossings, focus enforcement resources on dangerous criminals, combat human trafficking and drug smuggling, and restore order in a lawful and humane way.

I support ICE carrying out its lawful mission. Local law enforcement needs a federal partner when dangerous individuals, criminal organizations, trafficking, or serious immigration violations are involved. At the same time, federal agents are not above the law.

Minnesotans want dangerous criminals removed from their communities, but they do not want chaos, fear, or political theater in their neighborhoods. Enforcement works best when federal, state, and local agencies cooperate and focus on public safety.

I didn’t make TikTok videos or encourage citizens to put themselves in harm’s way. Instead, I worked to get decision-makers talking so we could stop the chaos and bring order back to our streets.

In Congress, I will work to secure the border, enforce the law consistently, improve legal immigration, and hold every agency accountable.

Oversight: How do you rate Congressional oversight in recent years? What should change moving forward and how would you make that happen?

Eric Pratt: Congressional oversight has become too reactive and too partisan. Oversight should matter regardless of which party controls the White House. Congress has a constitutional responsibility to protect taxpayers, enforce the law, and ensure federal agencies deliver measurable results.

I would work to create an independent Office of Program Integrity focused on fraud, waste, abuse, and identifying weak internal controls before they become massive scandals. This office would aggressively follow taxpayer dollars, use data analysis to detect problems early, and require agencies to respond promptly to audits and recommendations. It would also strengthen the work of Inspectors General and the Government Accountability Office.

When agencies fail to cooperate or correct known problems, Congress must be willing to use its subpoena and appropriations authority. Oversight cannot end with a hearing or a report; it must follow through until the problem is fixed and the public can see the results.

My background in financial risk management and fraud prevention taught me that the best system does not simply prosecute fraud after money disappears. It identifies potential points of compromise and puts effective guardrails in place before funds go out the door.

That same standard should apply in Washington, regardless of which party is in charge: transparency, measurable results, and accountability for every taxpayer dollar.

Matt Little: Congressional oversight has collapsed. Trump’s actions have made it clear that Congress has ceded too much power to the Executive Branch. Too many electedofficials have decided that loyalty to a president matters more than loyalty to the Constitution, or to the citizens who elected them.

The consequences are everywhere. A single unelected billionaire was handed the keys to federal agencies through DOGE and used that position to slash programs that compete with or regulate his own businesses. None of that happens with a Congress doing its job.

Congress needs to roll back the imperial presidency: close oversight loopholes, clarify budget-allocation and spending rules, reinforce the independence of oversight agencies, specify the rules for domestic deployment of military forces, and establish strong Congressional oversight of Justice Department actions so the FBI can’t become the president’s personal security.

We need to cut budgets for Homeland Security agencies that fail to follow federal court orders, restore subpeona power with teeth, and have the willingness to conduct oversight of any administration – including my own party’s.

Healthcare: Spiraling costs continue to plague healthcare. What will you do to fix healthcare?

Matt Little: In 2026, some 250 million Americans face premium increases far exceeding inflation and wage growth. Nearly 3 in 10 Americans delayed or went without medical care in the past year, and 42% of cancer patients deplete their entire life savings within two years of diagnosis.

It is no wonder 2 in 3 Americans want significant reform or a complete overhaul of the healthcare system. They can see that America’s health care system hasn’t been fixed by tinkering or bureaucratic baby steps. The ultimate goal is Medicare for All – which Yale researchers estimate would save 68,000 lives annually. Americans need comprehensive benefits and the freedom to choose their own doctors without worrying about networks.

Despite what too many people in power want you to think, this problem can be solved if we have the will to fight for affordable health care for everyone:

First, in the short term, we need to defend and permanently extend the enhanced ACA subsidies that Republicans let expire in the 2025 shutdown, so coverage doesn’t vanish for the people who need it most.

Second, pass Medicare for All and take on corporate price gouging and consolidation head-on, and empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Americans shouldn’t pay many times what other countries pay for the same medicine.

Third, I’ll also defend rural clinics and hospitals against Medicaid cuts and corporate takeovers. The nearest hospital being an hour’s drive away is no health care at all.

Eric Pratt: Healthcare costs too much, billing is confusing, and access is uneven. Too many families worry that one serious illness could threaten their financial security. We need to fix that.

But I do not believe the answer is putting every American into one federal health insurance system. If a family receives good coverage through an employer or union and wants to keep it, Washington should not take that choice away.

Instead, we should make healthcare more affordable, understandable, and centered on patients rather than bureaucracy. Patients deserve insurance policies written in plain language, so they can clearly understand their coverage, costs, and choices. We should increase competition among insurers and providers, require meaningful price transparency before care is delivered, expand primary care and telehealth, and give people more flexibility to use health savings accounts and portable benefits.

I have worked to help Minnesotans afford insulin, and we must continue pursuing practical solutions that lower prescription-drug costs. That includes encouraging generic and biosimilar competition and reforming pharmacy benefit managers. We also need to reduce fraud, waste, and administrative complexity that raise costs without improving care.

Rural access must be a priority. A reform is not successful if a hospital or clinic disappears from a Minnesota community.

My goal is straightforward: patients should understand what care will cost, have meaningful choices, and access the doctors and treatments they need. The answer is competition, transparency, plain-language policies, choice, and access, not government control of the entire healthcare system.

Democracy: Democratic norms have been stretched in recent years with extreme partisanship, politicizing the Department of Justice, and efforts to seize power, such as partisan gerrymandering. Do you support partisan control at any cost? Or will you work to restore fairness and equality to our system, no matter who is in charge?

Eric Pratt: No. I do not support partisan control at any cost.

The Constitution, the rule of law, and basic standards of fairness should not change depending on which party happens to be in power. The Justice Department should enforce the law without political favoritism, Congress should exercise meaningful oversight of the executive branch, and election laws should be clear, secure, and applied consistently.

One of the biggest problems in politics today is the belief that questionable behavior is acceptable as long as your own side is doing it. I reject that approach.

We can disagree strongly about policy without weakening the institutions and rules that allow

Americans to resolve those disagreements peacefully. I will apply the same standards whether a Republican or Democrat occupies the White House.

Matt Little: No – I don’t support partisan control at any cost. The rules are only fair if they apply no matter who’s in charge. What we’ve witnessed this past year is a systematic assault on democratic norms – politicizing the Justice Department, federal agents defying dozens of court orders, and pre-emptive, self-serving pardons. Trump pardoned David Gentile, a private equity executive who defrauded tens of thousands of retirees out of $1.6 billion. His victims won’t get their money back. Of course we should prosecute fraud and arrest criminals, regardless of race, nationality, or friendship with Donald Trump.

I’ll work to restore fairness. That means a fair process for drawing congressional districts that ends partisan gerrymandering by whichever party holds the pen. It also means overturning Citizens United, real DOJ independence, enforceable Supreme Court ethics, and passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

I defended voting rights in the Minnesota State Senate. I’ll bring that same fight to Congress.

Lightning Round

We asked candidates a series of 10 simple questions and asked them to respond briefly in 25 words or less.

1. Do you have a library card? When did you last use it?

• Matt Little: Yes! A few weeks ago, I checked out books for my daughter, Poppy, a budding reader. Libraries are one of our last true public goods.
• Eric Pratt: Yes. I used it this spring.

2. Do you support tax cuts for the wealthy?

• Eric Pratt: You deserve more than slogans from either party on taxes. Families deserve to keep more of what they earn.
• Matt Little: No. I’ll close the loopholes used exclusively by the ultra-wealthy and make the richest Americans pay their fair share.

3. Have you volunteered in your community in the past year? Where?

• Matt Little: Yes, with local nonprofits including the Open Door Food Shelf and Community 360, which serves unhoused neighbors.
• Eric Pratt: I’ve volunteered at several events in the community with the Prior Lake Rotary Club and other local organizations, like Sanya’s Hope for Children.

4. Do you support the SAVE Act that revamps elections? 

• Eric Pratt: Voters need to know that the election system is fair, transparent, and has the right controls in place to ensure only lawfully permitted citizens vote.
• Matt Little: No. It would block an estimated 69 million married women from registering to vote. It’s just voter suppression by another name.

5. Have you attended community events in a non-campaign capacity in the past year? Which ones?

• Matt Little: I support local urban debate programming. Also, my wife Coco loves classical music and classical Chinese music, and we go to concerts together.
• Eric Pratt: Several. The Lakefront Music Fest, Taste of Lakeville, Prior Lake Farmers Market, and many more

6. Do you support the Iran war?

• Eric Pratt: We must negotiate an end that doesn’t allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, control the Straits of Hormuz, and continue to sponsor terrorism.
• Matt Little: No. It’s prolonging the conflict and pushing Minnesotans – especially farmers – to the brink with soaring fertilizer and fuel costs.

7. What’s your favorite local park?

• Matt Little: I love Murphy Hanrehan Park Reserve. The hills, the forests, the birdsong really show off Minnesota’s natural beauty. Wild places like this are worth protecting.
• Eric Pratt: Cleary Lake. I’ve been going there since I was a kid

8. Do you support the recent cuts to USAID and other DOGE cuts?

• Eric Pratt: People work too hard for their money to watch government waste it. Compassion isn’t measured by government spending; it’s measured by whether we solve problems.
• Matt Little: Absolutely not – one unelected billionaire gleefully fed USAID “into the woodchipper”–an agency that saved 92 million lives. It was cruel and wrong.

9. Who is someone that inspires you?

• Matt Little: Minnesota’s own Hubert Humphrey. He pushed the Democratic Party into the modern era on civil rights and human rights, fighting for all working families.
• Eric Pratt: I’m inspired by my college football coach Bill McCartney, who encouraged his players to be “men of courage, men of action, and men of integrity.”

10. Do you support Trump’s approach to tariffs?

• Eric Pratt: Tariffs should support fair trade, not balance the budget because their downstream costs matter. Every president has used them when considering foreign policy.
• Matt Little: No. They’re a tax on working families, raising prices with nothing to show for it but lighter wallets and worsening relations with our neighbors.

More Information

• Access to Democracy Candidate Forum
• Dakota County Chamber Debate (October 12)
• KARE 11 On the Record Candidate Interviews
• MPR post-primary interviews with Little and Pratt.
• Star Tribune race overview
• WCCO Debate

See our full local voter’s guide for information on more races and candidates.

Local election coverage happens thanks to our members. Join now to support local news.