Senate District 4 incumbent candidate Sen. Rob Kupec and challenger Austin Peterson take part in a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, at the Moorhead Public LIbrary. Credit: Anna Paige for MinnPost
MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) – DFL State Senator Rob Kupec of Moorhead has always been aware that his District 4 seat would neither be easily won nor held.
In 2022, he defeated Republican Dan Bohmer by about 1,700 votes in a race that already saw an unusually high level of financial investment.
In 2026, it seems evident that Republicans singled out Kupec as the only Senate Democrat west of St. Cloud – and ramped up their spending to get him out.
“The amount now spent against me is 2.2 million,” said Kupec.
That effort, as of press time, succeeded, as Austin Peterson, a school board member in Hawley, bested Kupec by a mere four votes.
Dr. Barb Headrick, a professor of political science at MSUM, says she’s not surprised the race was this close given the political composition of District 4 which covers most of Clay and Becker counties.
“If you look at 4A and 4B, the two House districts, you see a Democratic lead of about 5,000 votes in 4A, and a Republican lead of about 5,000 votes in 4B. This is a district that’s almost 50/50 every time,” she explained.
Kupec, given the thin final vote margin, is gearing up for a state recount while looking at the positive of what the DFL was able to accomplish in these midterm elections.
“It appears that, minus my race, the DFL picked up a whole bunch of seats last night in the Minnesota Senate, so they’re going to go in with a much more comfortable majority,” he said.
Peterson has released a statement which reads, in part, “We are incredibly grateful to have won this race by four votes,” and “We recognize that a recount is ahead, and we respect the process. We look forward to seeing it through.”
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