U.S. House of Representatives
Elections 2018 In June 2018, President
Donald Trump campaigned for Stauber, making his first visit to Minnesota as president and attending his first rally to support a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in the 2018 general election, visiting Stauber's hometown of
Duluth. Stauber had served since 2013 as a member of the
St. Louis County, Minnesota Commission (which includes Duluth). He had also served on the
Hermantown City Council for eight years. The 8th district had an open seat in a district where the last two elections were close. Partisan funders on both sides of the aisle reserved "millions" of dollars for advertising in a race widely regarded as a potential Republican pickup of a seat that had been held since 2013 by
Rick Nolan. In November, Stauber defeated the DFL nominee, former Nolan aide
Joe Radinovich, to become only the fifth person to represent the district in 71 years, and the second Republican to do so. He won primarily by running up his margins in the district's more conservative western portion. During his 2018 campaign, Stauber ran on a policy of allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, becoming only one of a handful of Republicans to endorse what was primarily a progressive idea. He has since walked back from his campaign pledge. In December 2020, he filed a motion to support
Texas v. Pennsylvania, described as a "seditious abuse of the judicial process" and aimed at invalidating millions of votes in various swing states. The
Duluth News Tribune, which had endorsed Stauber, and many other local officials sharply criticized him for the ploy in an open letter.
2022 Stauber was reelected on November 8, 2022, defeating DFL nominee
Jennifer Schultz.
2024 Stauber was reelected on November 5, 2024, defeating Schultz in a rematch of the 2022 election.
Tenure According to the
McCourt School of Public Policy at
Georgetown University, Stauber held a Bipartisan Index Score of 0.7 in the
116th United States Congress for 2019, which placed him 64th out of 435 members. Based on
FiveThirtyEights congressional vote tracker at
ABC News, Stauber voted with Trump's stated
public policy positions 90.4% of the time, which ranks him average in the 116th United States Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used. On September 30, 2020, Stauber hosted Trump at a rally of about 3,000 people at the
Duluth International Airport. Along with two of his Minnesota Republican House colleagues, Stauber rode with Trump on
Air Force One. After it was determined that Stauber had interacted with people who tested positive for
COVID-19 in Washington D.C., including Trump, Stauber took a Delta flight in violation of Delta's rules, potentially exposing the other passengers to the virus. In December 2020, Stauber was one of 126 Republican members of the
House of Representatives to sign an
amicus brief in support of
Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the
United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the
2020 presidential election, in which
Joe Biden defeated Trump. A group of
Ojibwe tribes from Stauber's district rebuked him for his attempts to block President Biden's nomination of
Deb Haaland as
United States Secretary of the Interior. The Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes also complained about his actions. A member of the
House subcommittee on Indigenous Peoples, Stauber cited Haaland's support of the
Green New Deal and opposition to oil drilling. As a member of the House, he did not vote on the nomination. During the
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election in January 2023, Stauber consistently voted for
Kevin McCarthy. In October 2023, he voted against
removing McCarthy as speaker, which was unsuccessful and resulted in another
election. Stauber backed
Jim Jordan on the first ballot and
Bruce Westerman on the next two ballots before voting for
Mike Johnson on the fourth and final ballot. In December 2023, he was among the 105 Republicans who voted to expel
George Santos from the House. In April and May 2023, Stauber introduced a resolution and bill to end mineral withdrawal in
Ely, Minnesota, as a response to a moratorium the
Biden administration enacted the previous year. In April 2024, the House of Representatives passed Stauber's bill, 212–203. It was unlikely to pass the Democratic–controlled Senate, and the
White House publicly opposed it. With the Republicans having secured a federal
government trifecta, Stauber announced in January 2025 that he would reintroduce the bill. In 2026, Stauber invited
Nick Shirley, a right-wing
Youtuber known for creating videos making allegations of fraud at
Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota, to the
2026 State of the Union Address.
Political positions Committee assignments For the
119th Congress: •
Committee on Natural Resources •
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources (Chair) •
Subcommittee on Federal Lands •
Committee on Small Business •
Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Supply Chains •
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure •
Subcommittee on Aviation •
Subcommittee on Highways and Transit •
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Caucus memberships • Law Enforcement Caucus •
Congressional Steel Caucus •
Congressional Motorcycle Caucus •
Congressional Western Caucus •
Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation •
Republican Main Street Partnership •
Republican Study Committee •
Republican Governance Group •
Problem Solvers Caucus (former) •
Congressional Coalition on Adoption ==Electoral history==