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By Sydney Kashiwagi

The Associated Press

Hello and welcome back to another D.C. Dish!  

Democrats continued to grapple with the fallout from the party’s narrow vote to advance the continuing resolution, which avoided a partial government shutdown. President Donald Trump signed it into law over the weekend.  

DEMS UNDER FIRE: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s come under fire for changing course and suddenly backing the GOP-led bill, had to postpone a book tour this week amid the backlash. And he’s been facing calls to step aside over his vote. Now he's feeling the heat from the left-leaning group Indivisible, which is also causing headaches for Minnesota's four Republicans in Congress by urging them to hold town halls. 

Schumer and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, were the two senators in leadership who voted to advance the bill, but Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the No. 3 Democrat, broke with them in voting against it.

TAKING COVER FROM THE LEFT: Klobuchar’s vote has shielded her from some of the infighting in the Democratic Party and has won calls from different corners of the internet to replace Schumer as minority leader. 

THE GOP TAKE: Though she's being praised by the left, the Minnesota Republican Party was not pleased that she and Sen. Tina Smith voted against the bill.  

“This wasn’t a vote about principle — it was a calculated move to appease their party’s extreme wing at the expense of everyday Minnesotans who depend on a functioning government," said Minnesota GOP Chair Alex Plechash.

STAYING IN THE MIX: Gov. Tim Walz will swing through Wisconsin on Tuesday as part of a national town-hall-style tour of battleground districts to put pressure on Republicans who have stopped holding in-person meetings of their own, my colleague Briana Bierschbach reports. 

The Eau Claire stop is Walz’s third town hall in the past week and comes as the two-term Democratic governor and former vice presidential nominee has left the door open to a possible future national run.

“The future of our party, our policies, and our message are out there in red and blue districts all across the country,” Walz posted on X over the weekend. “I’m going to go listen.” Read more. 

The Minnesota Star Tribune

ELECTIONS: Rep. Michelle Fischbach announced she’s running for re-election to her U.S. House seat, which effectively closes the door on a possible Senate run.

LAST NO OF FOUR: She’s the last one of the four Minnesota Republicans in Congress who’s chosen to remain in the House rather than roll the dice on a Senate run. Some Minnesota politicos previously told me that if all four of Minnesota Republicans in the House passed on a run, it may be indicative of the chances they think Republicans have at winning the seat.  

Fischbach's announcement comes as some residents in Moorhead have expressed outrage that she characterized the recent protests taking place in her district as “garbage,” the Forum in Moorhead reports.  

DFL TAKES A SWIPE: “[I]nstead of answering for why she is trying to gut Medicaid and food assistance programs, she has gone into hiding and attacked her constituents as ‘garbage.’ If she wants another term in Congress, Rep. Fischbach should stop attacking the people she represents and the programs that working families in her district rely on,” DFL Executive Director Heidi Kraus Kaplan said in a statement.  

The Minnesota Star Tribune

CD2: The National Republican Congressional Committee put out its first iteration of its list of top target 2026 Democrats in the midterm cycle. Swing district Democrat Rep. Angie Craig is typically a familiar face on this list. She was on the NRCC’s initial list last cycle, but she was noticeably MIA this time around.  

“I’m most pleased not to be on the Republicans’ target list. They’ve finally figured out they can’t beat me,” Craig, who’s seriously weighing a bid for retiring Smith’s Senate seat, said in a statement. 

The list comes several months after she won her fourth term representing the Second Congressional District by her biggest margin yet against Republican Joe Teirab, and outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris at the same time.

IN THE CLEAR FOR NOW: The NRCC often does several iterations of these top target lists as the election cycle unfolds, so it’s possible her congressional seat could get added later on, especially in the event she decides to run for Senate.

WILL THEY OR WON'T THEY? However, if she chooses to pass on a Senate run and remain in the House, it will be interesting to see whether the NRCC ends up adding her to this list. If they don’t, it could mean she may no longer need to keep looking over her shoulder in tough races to hold her purple seat.  

PROFILE BOOSTERS AS THEY WAIT: As she weighs a Senate run, Time magazine zeroed in on Craig in a high-profile Q&A in which she talked about how to win back rural Midwestern voters and how she was able to outperform Harris, among other things. 

Meanwhile, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who’s also considering a Senate run, had a profile of her own in national media outlet the Nation, which looked at her journey from living in a Kenyan refugee camp after she and her family fled Somalia, to being one of the most well-known members of Congress.  

SHOUTOUT FROM TRUMP: Rep. Tom Emmer attended Trump's speech last week at the U.S. Department of Justice where he got a shoutout from the president that he's doing a "great job."

LEGISLATING: Klobuchar, Craig and Rep. Brad Finstad teamed up to introduce a bill in both chambers to reintroduce the Producer and Agricultural Credit Enhancement (PACE) Act. It's a bill that would help modernize loan limits for farmers. 

All three lawmakers are on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. Given its bipartisan support in both chambers, it should have an easier time making its way through Congress. 

Walz will speak during the Minnesota Farm Bureau's day on the hill at 11:30 a.m. 

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Craig, Klobuchar and Smith will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. Tuesday in West St. Paul alongside veterans, former Department of Veterans Affairs employees and union leaders to speak up about the Trump administration's cuts at the VA. 

Senate Agriculture members Smith and Klobuchar will later head to Willmar to get together with Minnesota poultry producers and other industry leaders to discuss the U.S. response to the bird flu at 2:30 p.m.