ELECTION 2026
Shortly after most of the questions were answered at Tuesday’s Meet the Candidates night in Marshall, featuring the four House District 15A candidates, one of them, the outspoken Brian Mock, brazenly stated that it’s a two-man race.
To whom Mock was referring was unclear, but his statement offered evidence of the highlydiversified field of candidates, ranging from a political veteran and college professor in Marshall to a 26-year-old EMT from Granite Falls.
Mock was joined at the event, held at the MERIT Center in Marshall, by David Sturrock of Marshall, Hunter McFall of Granite Falls and Brad Hennen of Ghent. The men took on a number of questions from the audience that made up the full house to Republican constituents, as each candidate seeks the GOP endorsement.
After introducing themselves, the questions began, starting with a general one about what sets them apart from the other candidates. Then, the inevitable query about dealing with fraud was offered up.
Mock: “(The Department of Justice) is doing nothing to fight fraud. The Democrats have all voted to not do anything, nothing. There is no cavalry. I’m working on this fraud solution right now. I’m the only candidate here that’s doing it. We’re going to find people who have been weaponized against. We’re going to go after very specific laws. We have a twoprong attack and put Democrats on the defensive.”
Sturrock: First, we deal with the evils that have happened, that means prosecutions against people who have broken the law. This isn’t just the Democrats being asleep at the switch; the federal government brought prosecutions against the abusers … guess who has not been doing that — our Attorney General Keith Ellison.”
Hennen: It’s been a major concern among our communities, among our state, and I hope it’s just not limited to the Republicans. Prosecuting those involved is going to be one of the most important things to do, and judges that don’t hold the guilty liable for their actions need to be held accountable as well. The most important thing that needs to be done next year is stop this fraud before it happens again.”
McFall: I go off of three things: Accountability, transparency and preventability. The Office of the Inspector General needs to make more headway. We need a separate power from the Executive Branch. Governor (Tim) Walz and AG Ellison have no oversight over this branch; we want these people to go to jail and we have judges that aren’t prosecuting.”
Are you willing to work with Democrats, Independents and fellow Republicans in order to meet the needs of your constituents to benefit all of Minnesota; are you going to compromise with bills and stand your ground on bills you don’t agree with?
Sturrock: “You can’t compromise your principals and your values. You go to St. Paul, you’re representing your conservative district … you do have to pass a bill sooner or later that’s going to be chock full of things that are imperfect; you have to make a reasonable decision that’s best for your constituents, what’s best for the people of the state.”
Hennen: “We have values and principals that we need to protect. We cannot be compromising on our values, but we do need to be able to articulate how our values resonate with others’.”
McFall: “Look at the State House right now, they’re tied, we have political gridlock; we do not need more partisanship. We can’t keep going far right, we can’t keep going far left. The big question we need to be asking ourselves is, ’Is this right for our district?’ We need to find that middle ground.”
Mock: “Truth of the matter is, my three opponents are really nice guys (but) they’re not ready for this. I’ve heard about reaching across the aisle — these people (Democrats) have declared war on us. (The Democrats) screwed up this state, they spent tens of billions of dollars of surplus and are forcing us into a deficit. I’ve fought at the highest levels and I’m winning.”
Southwest Minnesota is losing businesses to South Dakota — what ideas will you bring to the table to stop that from continuing?
Hennen: “I don’t want to see businesses move out of state because of regulations, because of high taxes. When businesses leave, our young people move along with them … I believe taxes and regulations are by far the biggest drawdowns in our local communities. We need to be able to have infrastructure rebuilt.”
McFall: “Taxes are killing us. We’re going to work with small businesses on tax abatement with their cities, we can look at repealing property taxes in general for our small businesses. The Paid Family Leave Act that got rushed into law is going to bankrupt our businesses — it’s ridiculous.”
Mock: “If you’re going to talk about incentives, lets get manufacturing in here; that has an inverse tax rate — you’re going to earn more taxes off of manufacturing than anything, other than medical. My proposal is, you come and get an education here, you put in five years, you learn your trade, and we start guaranteeing that we’re going to help get you set up with a business. We’re going to get you some tax incentives.”
Sturrock: We have the ‘Southwest Squeeze.’ St. Paul keeps sending the burdens like taxes. The regulations, the permitting process and that ‘rocks-and-cows’ attitude — all of that comes to us from St. Paul. At the same time, our low-tax, pro-business neighboring states work hard to draw our employers across the state lines.”
Talk about what’s happening with the Paid Medical Leave Act and how you might tweak it.
McFall: “I can understand parts of the concept, but this was rushed … and it has been a complete debacle. What are we doing with it? Why are we letting this continue to bankrupt our small businesses? It needs to be repealed, the process needs to be gone through more properly.”
Mock: “(The Democrats) are trying to make this a welfare state. When they bring in these policies, they do it to destroy small business; that’s how create a welfare state. We’re in a fundamental crisis here. You cannot elect a nice guy again … there is no aisle to reach across. This is a fundamental fight.”
Sturrock: “Paid Family Medical Leave — sloppy drafting, loose standards, little consideration of the size of the employer. We’ve got to tighten this up and improve it. We can’t encourage bad behavior.”
Hennen: “You cannot solve budgets with imaginary numbers. You cannot promise things like free buses, free healthcare without somebody footing the bill. If we’re going to implant new programs … the vast majority of the time, the government is pushing the wrong way and restricting supply, rather than making things more available. If you do have a new program, it should be sunsetted so that until it’s proven that it can work it will go out of existence at some point in the near future. Then you can look at permanent funding. It should be done at a micro level, on a small scale.”
