BAXTER — About an hour into a Republican forum for the Minnesota Senate District 6 election, candidate Matthew Zinda told the crowd that his opponent Keri Heintzeman and her husband Rep. Josh Heintzeman are funneling campaign donations to benefit themselves and pay for legal fees.
Keri Heintzeman said Zinda, who unsuccessfully primaried Rep. Josh Heintzeman last year, had an unnatural fixation on her family.
Suddenly, a pajama-clad man from the crowd of about 100 interjected, accused Keri Heintzeman of lying and cut her off, after he’d already repeatedly interrupted the candidate forum Tuesday evening.
Matt Kilian, president of the Brainerd Lakes Chamber of Commerce and the event’s moderator, had enough and asked the man to leave. After a brief conflict, a police officer escorted him out.
The special election embodies many of the trends that have emerged in American and Minnesota politics in the past few decades, from nasty name-calling to designs on dynasty.
And what Minnesota political story of the 2020s would be complete without Jennifer Carnahan, whose political career has careened from fallen state GOP party chair to congressional wife and widow, mayor of Nisswa and now Senate candidate.
Plus, a cigarette-smoking, pickup truck-driving Democrat, Denise Slipy, who is hoping she’ll be the one to finally win back some Greater Minnesota voters, against long odds.
Senate District 6 is ruby red Republican. Eichorn in 2022 won the seat by 27 points. Crow Wing County voted for President Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by 31 percentage points.
Voters will determine which Republican will run against Slipy, the sole Democrat, during a Tuesday primary. The general election is April 29.
The Republican frontrunners, however, are well-known in the district: Keri Heintzeman, Josh Gazelka and Jennifer Carnahan, who was not at the Baxter forum due to illness, she said.
Keri Heintzeman
Keri Heintzeman was the director of Trump’s 2024 campaign in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. Her husband Josh has been in the Minnesota House since 2015, and Keri’s frequently been a presence at the Capitol, often with a few of their half dozen children in tow.
Keri Heintzeman knocks on doors and distributes lawn signs in Brainerd before a candidate forum in Baxter on April 8, 2025. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/ Minnesota Reformer)
She’s out-raised her Republican opponents by far. In the few weeks since Eichorn resigned, she’s raised over $50,000, according to her campaign finance report.
Heintzeman, 44, has an organized campaign: She’s been knocking on doors, mailing campaign materials and recruited around 20 volunteers for field work.
In an interview with the Reformer, Heintzeman said she’s “by far the most conservative” candidate compared to the other Republicans running.
“I believe this district is blood red and loves President Trump and deserves a senator that will represent those values,” Heintzeman said.
The Heintzemans decided that when Josh was elected to the House, they weren’t going to split up the family, Keri Heintzeman said. The family stays at a hotel when the Legislature is in session. It’s a home base for other Republican legislators to kick back and unwind after a long day at the Capitol.
Keri Heintzeman was born in International Falls and has lived in the Brainerd Lakes area since eighth grade. She married Josh Heintzeman when she was 18 and has helped homeschool all six children.
Keri Heintzeman and her son were in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, but she said they left after Trump spoke. They were two states away when they realized what was happening at the U.S. Capitol, she said. She said she was there to support Trump and believed “he had done a good job and deserved our respect for the four years that he had put in.”
Keri Heintzeman said she believes there was fraud in the 2020 election and at minimum the U.S. should have voter ID laws.
Josh Gazelka
Josh Gazelka is the son of former Minnesota Senate majority leader and failed gubernatorial candidate Paul Gazelka.
Gazelka, 31, told the crowd at the candidate forum Tuesday he didn’t want to be there.
“I was not expecting to run. I was not intending to run. If you told me three weeks and one day ago that I’d be sitting here talking to you about my candidacy, I probably would have laughed you out of the room,” Gazelka said in an interview with the Reformer.
Gazelka said he felt an obligation to the community to step up and run after hearing the news about Eichorn’s arrest.
Gazelka said his campaign mostly consists of digital ads and calling voters on the phone. Campaign signs, he said, are hard to print expeditiously, so he’s taken a creative approach.
“Fortunately for me, a guy with the same last name as me, Gazelka, ran back in 2004. I tracked down some of his signs from 2004 and retrofitted them to work for this campaign,” Gazelka said.
He showed the signs to the Reformer but asked they not be photographed. The white and blue campaign signs say “Vote April 15 Gazelka.” The “Vote April 15” was placed on top of his dad’s name, “Paul,” but it’s still slightly visible.
Asked if he’s relying on name recognition alone, Gazelka said he’s trying to get his message out there so people learn who he is.
“Nepotism — that’s one that comes up. I’ve been called a second-generation swamp monster. A lot of creative names,” Gazelka said.
Gazelka is currently a vice president for a marketing company based in Texas. He owned a hard cidery, but it closed in part thanks to Minnesota’s hostile business climate, he said. Gazelka said he wants to bring a business perspective to the Legislature and pass bills that help struggling small businesses.
He said his father hasn’t given him campaign advice, but Paul Gazelka did give him a $500 campaign donation, according to his campaign finance report.
Jennifer Carnahan
Jennifer Carnahan is the former chairwoman of the Minnesota Republican Party who resigned in the wake of allegations that she presided over a toxic work culture — she was also connected to a major GOP donor who’s serving a 21-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking.
Which is less than ideal in a special election to replace Eichorn.
She declined the Reformer’s request for an interview.
“I have no doubt your outlet will continue issuing salacious, misleading, and defamatory statements about me — without my voice,” Carnahan wrote in an email.
Carnahan won the Nisswa mayoral race in November, a political comeback after she’d tried to replace Hagedorn in Congress following his passing in 2022.
Late last month, Carnahan through her attorney sent the Minnesota DFL Party a letter threatening to sue unless the DFL retracted and publicly apologized for posting about Carnahan’s ties to Anton Lazzaro, the convicted sex trafficker whose arrest began the chain of events that led to her departure from the Minnesota GOP.
“You co-hosted a podcast with a child-sex trafficker, socialized with him, and raised huge sums of money from him to support Minnesota Republican candidates. If you follow through on this absurd lawsuit, it will end as one more addition to your long list of failures,” wrote Heidi Kraus Kaplan, Minnesota DFL executive director.
Carnahan has raised over $11,000 in individual campaign donations, according to her campaign finance report.
In a Wednesday Facebook post, Carnahan said the Heintzemans are trying to buy the Senate seat.
“We don’t need to have a husband and wife from the same household representing us in St. Paul. That’s a total conflict of interest. There is no independence there. It’s two people then that are looking out for their household and they’re living 100% solely on our taxpayer backs,” Carnahan said.
In a campaign post, Carnahan described herself as a “political outsider,” despite running for Minnesota Senate in 2016; serving as chair of the Minnesota Republican Party from 2017 to 2021; marrying a politician shortly after his election to Congress; serving on Trump’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during his first term; running for Congress in 2022; and serving as the current mayor of Nisswa.
Denise Slipy
Denise Slipy is an environmental health and safety professional and first responder for North Crow Wing County. She said she’d been gearing up to run for the Minnesota House in 2026, but is now taking a shot at the open Senate seat.
Slipy described herself as a moderate Democrat. People in the area know her, she said, because of her work as a first responder. She’s also dressed up as the Grinch a few times for Christmas.
She said that late DFL U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan was a good friend and mentor to her.
Slipy acknowledged that the district is very red, but she said she can sway Republican voters by listening and acting as a voice for rural Minnesotans in the Senate.
“There’s more that unites us than what divides us, and the extremes on either side … have to stop. The extremes are getting us nowhere. It’s those of us who are middle-thinking, moderate, common sense folks that need to have a voice at the table,” she said.
Slipy would bring geographic diversity to a metro-dominated DFL Senate caucus. She likes her American flag-bedecked clothes — and her smokes.
“I don’t condone smoking at any age for anybody. I do smoke, but I’m a person. That’s one of the big things — I’m gonna fight for you because I’m one of you,” Slipy said.
She also drives a truck with a sticker that reads, “Jesus loves everyone you hate.”
Photo: Minnesota Senate candidates placed hands on hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance before the candidate forum in Baxter on April 8, 2025. Left to right: Steve Cotariu, Josh Gazelka, Keri Heintzeman, John Howe, Doug Kern, Angel Zierden, Matthew Zinda. Candidate Jennifer Carnahan did not attend. Eight GOP candidates want to fill the Minnesota State Senate seat vacated after Justin Eichorn was arrested in a prostitution sting. (Photo by Glen Stubbe/Minnesota Reformer).
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