Photo by Deb Gau Erik Osberg speaks at the Senate District 15 DFL convention in Wood Lake. Osberg announced this month he plans to run for Congress against Rep. Michelle Fischbach.

WOOD LAKE — Running for Congress against Rep. Michelle Fischbach is a task that will feel “more like a marathon than a sprint,” Erik Osberg said.

The first step for him would be hearing from residents in Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District, he said.

“There does seem to be a different energy in the air right now,” Osberg told a gathering of Democrats from Minnesota’s Senate District 15. He said people from across western Minnesota were speaking their minds.

Osberg, a Wadena resident, launched his congressional campaign on March 11. He will be seeking the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement to run against Fischbach in CD 7.

During Saturday’s district DFL convention in Wood Lake, Osberg said he wanted to meet and hear from as many people in the district as possible while organizing his campaign.

“This campaign is about changing the narrative of what it means to be a Democrat in a rural place,” he said.

Osberg has a background in media, marketing and finance. He is currently the Rural Rebound Initiative coordinator in Otter Tail County.

“I have never run for office before. I’ve never held a political office before. But I’m a problem solver. That’s what I do,” Osberg told area Democrats.

Osberg said education, health care and agriculture were all issues that were important to him.

“What I believe is that health care, like education, should be a right of American people, and it needs to be accessible and affordable. And we’ve made a lot of gains over the last 60 years in those public programs,” he said. “I will be a very strong advocate that the advances that we have made over the last 60 years to create public support won’t be taken away so that we can give a tax break to the rich. I feel comfortable saying that right now.”

An audience member asked Osberg if he would support running on Medicare for All, or another form of universal health care.

Osberg said he would have to learn more about the issue, but he also referred to a conversation he had earlier that day with a former Minnesota director of Medicaid.

“The problem he identified was, Medicare for All can be inefficient,” Osberg said.

“I’m not opposed to any sort of universal health care, it’s just the Medicare for All, in the state that it’s been talked about, might not be feasible,” he said.

Another audience member said she wanted to challenge Osberg to talk to more people about options on universal health care.

“My promise to you is I’ll dig into that deeper and learn more,” Osberg said.

Audience members told Osberg he also needed to hear from and connect with farmers in western Minnesota.

“My hope is that I earn that trust,” Osberg said. “I want to understand what you guys face on a daily basis.”

One audience member told Osberg that he needed to address issues like taxes and regulations in order to connect with farmers in the region.

“You’ve got to be able to talk to them. Otherwise, they’re not gonna give you the time of day,” the audience member said.

Audience members urged Osberg to keep up the momentum of his campaign.

“There’s a lot of frustration nationwide that Democrats are not coming at this hard enough, fast enough, and with enough of a strong, strong belief in what their platform is,” one woman said.

“I’m willing to work my tail off. I really am,” Osberg said.

He said his campaign was currently still in the organizing phase.

“It’s gonna take me a while to visit as many counties as I possible can and make connections … and then we build this team,” he said.

Osberg said one challenge for his campaign was that he might not seem angry enough.

“The energy and enthusiasm will be there, but it might not come across as anger,” he said. Osberg said he hoped to reach out to people across the political spectrum. “At my core, I’m an optimist, and I believe that there’s good in everybody. I have a lot of friends on the right, and I love them and I respect them. And I’m trying to light that candle instead of curse the darkness, if that makes any sense.”

“It’s been energizing. I didn’t know how the world would react,” Osberg said of the response to his campaign announcement. He said for the next few months, he plans to have as many conversations with CD 7 residents as he can.