Listen to the Moment a Math Teacher’s Former Students Realize He Won (w/ Jake Johnson)

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Bulldog Takes. I'm Tim Miller. We are continuing the series of profiles and interviews with inspiring, exciting, surprising democratic winners from last Tuesday's midterm. And today we've got for you a representative elect Jake Johnson out of Minnesota, representative elect ish. We still we still we still might be in recount territory here, but all science are pointing to Congress and you're in DC right now, right? That's right. That's right. Doing a new member orientation getting ready. I love it. All right. So here's how you made the cut for this series. So you ready? I saw this tweet from my friend Sean Manning here at this high school math teacher that grew up in a working class household with 10 siblings, decides to run for Congress with a campaign almost entirely staffed by his former students in a district that went for Trump by double digits, any wins because of the pre-signity taught in for nearly two decades. Is that right? Did he get us? You nailed it. You got it. Yeah. My, we're very proud of what we've done. You know, the incumbent had won in 2024 by 17 points. And yes, we ran a campaign that was authentic to me, authentic to our district and run by, like you said, many of my former students. And so yeah, it's a heartwarming, uplifting story just about what can happen when some some dedicated folks decide that we need a government that's more responsive and is willing to listen to and fight for us. So were you still math teaching when you started the campaign? There's a long campaign. So yes, when I started the campaign, I was still teaching and so it's homework. Yeah, everything, everything, the whole whole enchilada. And then this fall, finally, I took a leave of absence for the first part of this school year. And so the road was, it was going to diverge. If I won, I was Congressman elect Jake Johnson for the first district. If I lost, I was back in the classroom November 9th. So here I am. Well, kind of a win-win for you, though, this is a win for the rest of us. What have you talked to, Senator elect Taloriko at all, another fellow school teacher? I have not, but I would be happy to, of course. We got to get you on his call sheet. I'm going to make that happen for you. Okay. Now we're talking to him. Now we're talking. Yes. We're going to get you on his call sheet. All right, so let's go back to the origin story. Why why did you decide to make the run? I know, look, when you had started the campaign, the idea of winning an R+17 district is kind of crazy. I mean, there was, there's some discussion actually. I was talking to Tim Walls while back about figuring out how to redistrict. You know, maybe like Minnesota would, would change the district somehow, what was happening with the midterms. But why did you decide to jump into a race that seems like such an uphill battle? Seems like the right thing to do. I grew up as a snap kid and a Medicaid kid. And I was running against the guy who was on the ag committee and was very, very proud to have led the fight to cut snap and gut Medicaid. And I thought, you know what? I tell my students all the time, go make the world a better place. Don't sit around and hope that somebody else is going to do something about it. And so jumped into the race with a pretty simple idea. We need a working class champion for working class people in Southern Minnesota again. And that's what we, that's what we built the entire campaign upon. And it turned out that, you know, when you show up, when you listen to people all across the district, even when it was Republican plus 17, as you said, people listen, people are responsive to somebody like them fighting for the things that they care about. And we're very proud of what we've done. The snap is an important issue that does get kind of lost in all the craziness of the last two years. I mean, I've been on the ag committee and it is there's this weird kind of connection, I need to make sense. Once you think about it, but I think people who are not in ag world might not consider it like the way that in the farm bill, you know, that the funding for snap, funding for school lunch programs, a lot of this stuff is included because it's good for American farm workers in addition to being good for, you know, the people that need the assistance. And for your opponent there to be on the ag committee and be part of gutting that, I don't know, talk about why that's important to you and what you think is possible going forward on that front. Yeah, it wasn't always like this. We used to have farm bill processes where both producers are farmers and consumers oftentimes, you know, folks that need that food, they were linked together in a farm bill. We also had a farm bill that was bipartisan. So Republicans and Democrats would come together and figure out how do we support our farmers who are world class in Southern Minnesota and then how do we also support people with hunger needs. And that process existed for a very long time until snap was ripped out of it. Right. And then that link between producer and consumer was was suffered. And so I look forward to being part of this Congress and actually delivering a farm bill for the people of Southern Minnesota and the people of this country because Lord knows we need it. Our farmers who are small business owners need that stability moving forward and we got a lot of food insecurity in this country and farmers who can provide that food. And so yeah, we need it enough with the sort of patchwork, you know, pieces that we've seen of legislation. We need five years of stability with the farm bill. I look forward to being a part of it. This message is brought to you by his octag. 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Help you find the right fit. In the best part, it's completely free to use. Your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. So are you ready to be seen? Head to zaktok.com/bolwartakes to get started and check that appointment off your to do list at zocdoc.com/bolwartakes. What other passions do you have out there? What other priorities do you think you want to be focused on? It's a huge house majority. I do think it's an opportunity for people to focus on various things that are important to them or their district. Yeah, I mean, we got to bring down costs. That's got to be priority number one. It's why people have sent me to Washington DC from Southern Minnesota. We got to bring down costs. I would be working tirelessly to end the tariffs. The tariffs have been real bad for business in Southern Minnesota, whether you're a small business owner, a farmer, family. It doesn't really matter. The tariffs have been a disaster and really we need to get back to Congress asserting their congressional authority, their constitutional authority around tariffs. I look forward to being a vote for that and also a vote to end the Iran war. We saw it. Everybody saw it and let it above four. Diesel above six dollars a gallon. Right after, right after this, this senseless needless war was sort of inflicted upon us. And so again, Congress has been silent here. That's where my vote. That's where my voice is going to be. We got to start by bringing down costs. And then maybe hopefully we can walk and chew gum at the same time, tackle some of the corruption that we've seen. People lose in faith in their government. And so that's things like a full comprehensive stock trading ban. For I would say members of Congress, their families, the executive branch and their families. I hope Congress has a voice on that. Ending Citizens United. That's where my heart is at. And closing off the pipeline of politician to lobbyist, I think that just creates a sort of a quagmire here of people who are so immersed in Washington DC that they can't possibly see the needs of their district and the fact that there are two separate rules right now. One for folks back in my district and then one for the rich and the powerful and the well connected. And so look forward to tackling costs and corruption as a part of this Congress. All right, so you had the 10 siblings? Yeah. How many of them were for you? Did you get them all or are there a few that you had to work on? I don't know if I'm purple of them. I'll be honest with you. Listen, 10 siblings, you know, I got people all across the political spectrum. I've got, you know, ardent supporters of the president. And then I've got, you know, certainly more liberal members of my family and everything in between, apolitical siblings who don't even really follow politics. And honestly, one of the most nerve-wracking calls that I had on this entire campaign. Actually, it was pre-campaign. I asked all my family to jump on to a facetime, a family facetime so that I could tell them I was going to do this thing and I was very, very nervous. I didn't know how they were going to react and respond. And every single one of them, even my most ardent, you know, conservative Republican siblings said, "Jake, we're so proud of you." And honestly, from there, yeah, everybody was on Team Jake. It was great. I love that. So the mega siblings, you know, they aren't giving any any any trouble on any of the issues so they're working you over or you or you're using them as a sounding board on how to get mega voters in the district well I would say first of all both both I talked to them all the time as much as I can and I would also say some of my some of my more conservative supporters are actually some of my biggest defenders on social media which is kind of fun you know they they stand up and and speak out when they see something that they don't think is right and and so yeah my my family takes care of me and obviously they're wonderful wonderful people what was the election night like for you I mean were you anticipating even like what was your feeling of optimism and you know who who is with you yeah we knew it was gonna be close we anticipated a close race we had run hard the whole time all the way through the finish line and so on election night I was with my wife couple of my siblings a few of my siblings a lot of their kids so my nieces and nephews and we watched the results come in and and it got too late for some and so then it was just me my wife my mom a couple of my siblings who don't have kids and then eventually got even too late for them and so it was just my wife and I and and honestly at one point it even got too late for my wife who went to bed and so it was somewhere in the one o'clock hour two o'clock hour where all the precincts finally had come in and we were up by 320 321 votes and so you didn't have one of the students with you yeah so some of my on my on my campaign team yeah they were watching intently and there's actually a video that just of them just erupting just absolutely erupting when when we saw that I'm a 749 thought of 750 precincts we finally took the lead okay so you're a math teacher I don't know what you know about me but I am a former oh it's been a long time now it's been about a decade but I'm a former Republican and I actually cared about some of the things that we used to talk about including the I'm a little concerned about the budget up there sometimes some of my new Democratic allies feel a little less concerned about that than me but what what's your mindset when it comes to that I mean this is this is one thing that I think is a crisis that not a lot of people are talking about although it did come up at a fair number of our town hall meetings you know we hosted one in every county and it came up a lot I don't I don't think a lot of people recognize you know national debts in over 40 trillion last year alone you know we spent a trillion dollars nearly just paying off the interest on our national debt that's a crisis that's more than we spent on Medicare it's more than we spent on national defense and it's squeezing Congress's ability to spend you know discretionary funds it's it's also I mean you know it's it's making the costs of taking out a loan more and more expensive so yeah exactly and so no I'm passionate about this I look forward to being a voice to hold both parties accountable I think we need a balanced budget amendment I think we need serious people from both the Republican and Democratic Party to sit down in a room and figure out why it is that we are on this exponential growth curve until you use a math term as far as our national debt because this is only going to get worse if we don't address it immediately and so finding ways both on the revenue side and and on the efficiency side of our government to to bring down that you know bring down that curve bend that curve and get to a balanced budget that's where I'm at and if we don't if we don't do something soon it's it's going to keep getting worse all right math teacher I'm liking that we might need more math teachers right next time it should be it might be a recruitment area the um all one more thing I just wanted to ask you out we were last in Minnesota after the murder of Renee Good and Alex Freddie and we held a couple of live podcasts Minneapolis and you know obviously like ice activities are not as like a cute-in in your face as they were then but they are they do continue to be ongoing as far as as far as grabbing people that have American spouses and kids don't have criminal records being detained having ankle monitors put on them Trump just before he started taping kind of backed off his comments from 60 minutes where he said he wanted a grand deal on immigration and and he's now kind of saying that we're gonna stick to the current plan what role do you think the Democratic Congress can play and you know raining in bringing reforms to it's happening with ice what we saw in Minnesota everybody saw it it wasn't just in Minneapolis St. Paul it was across our state it's been across our country is a well-funded incredibly well-funded and poorly trained militia wreaking havoc in our communities we saw first hand and we saw a 90-year-old Minnesota standing out in 20 below weather trying to protect their neighbors listen I think what we need to do and Congress needs to do this is restore funding levels for ice to historically appropriate levels I do think there is a role for ice to play in in in in an immigration system that's actually working but they don't need to be funded at levels that would put them you know somewhere between the 17th and 20th largest military in the entire world on their own that's unacceptable and so you know what we need are the masks to come off we need more accountability we need better job training for folks that are going to be in in that agency and we really need them to be responsive to the needs of local communities and and this is all part of I think a broader conversation that we need to have on comprehensive immigration reform we have a system that's broken and the reality is until Congress steps up and actually delivers on that promise we're going to continue to have runaway administrations just you know wreaking havoc in our communities and and that's not acceptable to me it's not acceptable to the vast majority of Americans and I certainly hope Congress has a role to play in figuring out how do we make sure that yes the border is secure how do we also make sure that there are pathways for people who want to come here legally to improve their lives and and make this country a better place Congress needs a role in that all right how's Ben no member orientation what's it like first day of school you know do you have somebody to sit next to in the lunchroom yet listen I will tell you we're working on that honestly I'm just trying to make sure that when January 3rd gets here I am ready to serve the people my office is ready to serve the people we have world class constituent services that if somebody needs something there is there is you know there is someone there to pick up the phone answer a letter answer an email and that we are delivering for the people of Southern Minnesota that's why they sent me here and that's exactly what I intend to do so really really excited and honored to be given this this opportunity to serve the people who put me in office and whether people voted for me or not looking for to serve in everybody all right I appreciate the time that is Congressman elect Jake Johnson out of Minnesota's first district let's stay in touch all right thank you so much to appreciate you we'll do appreciate it