Strib reporting, here. The recollection is that there were two DFL wannabes, both middle of the road, Craig the lesser corporatist but still not a progressive. Why waste more time and effort on middling candidates?
If you want the full picture of the incumbent Craig failed to defeat, web search "galt.io" and reflect upon the outcome and Craig as candidate; against that.
Only a total huckster could launch galt.io. Angie, you missed defeating a total huckster, so stand aside, drop out. This is sad stuff, from Strib's report:
In her announcement, however, Craig fixed her aim on Lewis, who she said has "marched in lockstep with President Trump and Congressional Republican leaders. The fight for health care is just one example — he voted to increase premiums and deductibles, to raise costs dramatically for older Americans and to cut coverage for millions of Americans — all to give a tax cut to the rich."
Lewis spokesman Stephen Bradford said in a statement that voters rejected Craig's "radical ideas" in 2016. He said Craig and other "very liberal candidates either obstruct real health care, tax and regulatory reform or veer hard-left with dangerous new schemes."
Two folks each in their sad and stupid way staking a lesser evil claim. We need a greater good - a progressive. A single payer progressive. A student debt reform progressive. An income inequality fixing progressive. Not a wealthy Dem candidate whose income distribution history has been cracker jack fine, for her.
BOTTOM LINE: Angie Craig needs a progressive primary opponent, and that's a big time need.
Again, this link, for present Strib reporting.
___________UPDATE____________
Angie, go away. There is a better person already committed to run, with policy aims where a belated Craig "me too" would not ring very true. Angie's aim seems more about Angie with a bit of fluff thrown in, less about strong progressive stances on issues. Running as "I'm the moderate, Jason's too extreme" did not move the voters. Compare that ballotpedia item, history preserved, to this clear set of ideals:
Click the thumbnail to read what candidate Jeff Erdmann puts first as policy aims, or better link over to the original page to read his entire belief set on issues:
https://erdmannforcongress.com/on-the-issues/
That is clearly a sub-page of the Erdmann campaign website:
https://erdmannforcongress.com/
Jeff Erdmann's online contribution page; here.
Jeff Erdmann's volunteer page:
https://erdmannforcongress.com/get-involved/
That last link has the snail mail address for the Erdmann campaign, if you want to mail a check as I will. Mine will be a multiple of $27.
ERDMANN FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE
PO Box 122 Rosemount, MN 55068
651-456-8828
Erdmann seems less an early-retirement wealthy health-industrial-complex insider than Craig, more one of the people tired of an ineffective status quo and wanting to reform and improve things. More Wellstone to the man and to his beliefs. Could you rationally expect to ever see this from Angie Craig except if as a "me too" tactic, too little, too late:
As a disclaimer: There was no indication found of either an Our Revolution or a Justice Democrats endorsement, nor tie-in by Erdmann to either group. Just a sense of more fire-in-the-belly ability to take it to a clown like Jason Lewis than the medical device retiree did, or might.
The fact is, without a passing reference in the Strib item initially noted to Erdmann already being a candidate, his effort would have been under Crabgrass radar. His name in the item prompted this websearch, and lo, there already is the better candidate ready and willing and not a perhaps or a maybe again.
One can wonder, why Strib choose to feature a maybe-try-again corporatist Democrat with only a passing reference to an already landed and running individual with more promise. At a guess, Strib sees Craig as better placed to get beltway money, DNC and such, Wall Street cash backing, much as status quo Clinton spouses did while massive feeling the Bern went unreported in mainstream media. There is that as history, and Glen Taylor is mainstream Republican more than Tea Party, in being owner of Strib. Pay the piper and call the tune? Perhaps, perhaps not. In any event that one passing reference let the cat out of the bag, and deflated Angie Craig's balloon.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
The Jeff Erdmann volunteer link given above is a very important one. The man is not going to get any corporatist help, the effort will be to starve him for money and tout and fund Craig in another "okay whether she wins or loses" donor class attitude display; so that it will be ---
GRASSROOTS FOR ERDMANN or more of the same.
That would even serve as a good primary campaign slogan, but, aside from that, Craig/Erdmann in juxtaposition with Strib featuring the one and not the other goes to the heart of saving the Democratic Party from the worse of itself. Backing Erdmann early, with donations statewide and volunteer help in his district will be essential to trying to keep the Democratic Party relevant. Please help.
___________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
Craig, 2016 run, financing. Craig, potential candidate, 2018 fundraising page.
In 2016 Craig was clearly the better choice of two; and would decisively have been an improvement, if elected, over Col. Klink. However, not elected. Were she now the incumbent, perhaps a differing analysis might have been written here. There would at least have been a track record to praise or critique. But she lost. To Jason Lewis. That seems the whole of the story.
___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Video. Erdmann. Craig. Neither is a bad candidate. But Jason Lewis has got to be moved; an incumbent now, while the seat was open last cycle with Col. Klink moving on after for-profit pseudo-colleges unconscionably running up student debt became a hot potato for the nuclear-football man.
___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Without knowing anything of the bona fides of the CROWDPAC website, there is a self-published statement of an independent Minnesota CD2 candidate, Jacob Cassidy, with a seeming progressive orientation, one readers should at this early stage note. If progressives push one another to better state detailed progressive agendas, good would result. Angie Craig differentiating her agenda from that of Lewis, and of progressives, would also prove helpful to voters. Generalities are the bane of gaining widespread informed voter judgment.