Politics & Government

Ellison on Election: 'We Won an Argument'

Fifth District voters sent Keith Ellison back to Congress. His Republican challenger, Chris Fields, received 25 percent of the vote.

Use the scroll bar to the right of the photo above to review tweets and photos from the last week via Storify.

It was a big week for U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who reflected on his Nov. 6, 2012 re-election in a post-election YouTube

I've never been able to stand for office and get 256,000 votes before. That's a high-water mark for me. Seventy-five percent of the vote: another high-water mark for me. ... But we did something even more important than winning an election. We won an argument.

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Chris Fields, Ellison's Republican challenger, put it this way in a statement Wednesday:

This loss is tough for all of us. I came up woefully short in my campaign to unseat Keith Ellison. ... It is worth noting that last night we received a record number of votes cast for a Republican candidate in the 5th District. ... We have raised more money than the past three candidates to run against Keith Ellison, combined. With more than 88,000 votes cast in support of our campaign we received more votes than Senator Norm Coleman received in the 5th District during his successful run for the U.S. Senate in 2002. We even received more votes than Governor Tim Pawlenty did in the 5th District during both of his successful runs for Governor.

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Both candidates, campaigns and supporters weighed in on Twitter (see a healthy sample of tweets in the window above by using the scroll bar, or at Storify.com).


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