Reitred U.S. Air Force Major Dave Hughes’ interview with Flag Family News Reporter Chris Larson
KARLSTAD, MINN. – Retired U.S. Air Force Major Dave Hughes is running for Minnesota’s Congressional District 7 Republican nomination.
The Republican nominee in 2016 and 2018 says he’s felt ‘a lifelong calling to service,” particularly in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I haven’t sensed that that calling has gone away,” he said. “I think the country needs true conservatives now more than ever. And so I’m seeking office.”
Hughes’ message
The conservative Republican from Karlstad, Minn., in northwest Minnesota, says his message is simple – less government, more freedom, less government, more prosperity.
“The problem is that our federal government continues to grow,” Hughes said. “It’s been hemorrhaging cash in the way of these things that people talk about called annual budget deficits.”
The United States has not balanced a budget in a quarter-century, Hughes said.
“I think that’s key to all the stuff that people are currently talking about. The affordability crisis, is government good? Is it not so good? Are we doing what we should be doing?” he said. “If you admire certain conservatives in Congress who say no to bigger spending and no to bigger budgets, and yes to more freedom, that’s what I aspire to be, and that’s why I’m running.”
Constituent thoughts
Hughes said he’s had a chance to visit with those who are in Congressional District 7.
“What they’re telling me is that they’re very unhappy with their current U.S. Representative,” he said. “It’s not so much that she’s certainly not a Democrat, but there’s a lot of problems with the party in western Minnesota, the Republican Party of Minnesota.”
Hughes says there’s a ‘civil war’ going on in the 7th Congressional District ‘between those who call themselves grassroots, which I identify with, and those on the other side who are more, who, frankly, some of the agents on the other side there seem to be desperately grasping at consolidating power’
“People always ask, well, what’s the reason why this? Why are they doing that? Well, it’s because they want to protect U.S. Representative Michelle Fischbach,” he said. “When she ran in 2024, which wasn’t so long ago, she was so unpopular with the delegates.”
His experience
With 21 years of Active Duty service with the U.S. Air Force, Hughes says he brings a focus on foreign policy.
“I will be a vote for non-interventionist America first policies,” he said. “That doesn’t mean at all that I’m an isolationist, but it means that I am a non-interventionist, which means I am very wary of jumping in and doing things overseas, unless there’s a clear strategic national interest for the United States.”
He said he doesn’t agree with those who claim the United States ‘should have written a blank check’ to Ukraine.
“I argue that that’s not in the interest of the United States,” he said.
Congressional District 7 priorities
Agriculture is the top economic sector for western Minnesotans in the district.
Fischbach is currently not on the House Agriculture Committee, but if elected, Hughes would push to be on the committee.
His priorities include balancing the budget, right sizing government, Social Security reform, work on Medicare and ending abortion in America.
Previous campaigns
Hughes was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2016 and 2018 – earning Donald Trump’s endorsement the second time.
He said his views on federal policy have not changed – and he remains a constitutional conservative.
Yet he lost to Colin Peterson in 2016 and 2018.
“We did what we thought we needed to do in terms of lots and lots of parades, lots and lots of handshaking,” Hughes said.
His strategy is a ‘three-phase approach.’
“You got to win the endorsement, the party endorsement. The seventh congressional district will endorse either myself or Michelle Fischbach in April, and that’s what I’m going for now, and then the primary. “Then really after the primary, I don’t see any evidence that winning the general should be difficult at all. And so my focus is primarily right now on the endorsement and that centers around the delegates themselves.”
He said beating a sitting member of Congress will be difficult but believes he can do it.
“if I can get some big name endorsements and some national attention, I think the fund raising will be easier,” he said.
Honoring the endorsement
Hughes said that he will honor the endorsement – no matter what the result is.
“If I don’t earn it in April, I will back out and she’ll have the primary unchallenged,” he said.
He calls on Fischbach to also honor the endorsement.
“In 2024, she had signed a pledge to abide by that endorsement and then she rescinded it two weeks before the convention,” Hughes said.
Town halls
Constitutents in Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District are critical of Fischbach’s lack of holding town halls.
She has held one, which was moderated by the Center of the American Experiment and required people pay to get into the event.
Will Hughes have town halls?
“I don’t know how many town halls I’m going to do while campaigning,” he said.
However, he said if he’s elected that may be different – citing a practice by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
The state of Iowa has 99 counties and Grassley visits every county at least once a year, featuring a publicly advertised town hall.
“I will do the same,” Hughes said. “There are 39 counties in Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District and the key to those town halls is that they’re publicly advertised in advance of the event so that your detractors as well as your supporters can show up and voice their concerns and so forth.”
