With the November 3 election fast approaching, you can’t escape the political ads. TV, radio, online — the ads are everywhere and yes, they’re annoying.
That said, you shouldn’t throw up your hands in disgust and say, “That’s it. I ain’t voting.”
If you care about preserving our outdoor traditions, protecting our Second Amendment rights, and ensuring future generations have the same opportunities, voting is mandatory. Period.
Every Election Matters
This October — as I’ve done for decades — I reached out to my closest hunting and fishing buddies and begged them to vote. Is this my responsibility? No. And frankly, it pisses me off that they don’t take voting more seriously. Since the beginning of the United States, members of our armed forces have died fighting for our country, fighting for your right to vote, and you're too lazy to get off the couch to vote? There’s no other way for me to say it — that’s unpatriotic, pathetic and embarrassing.
I’m not a huge fan of AI, but this election year I found it helpful to modify a graphic I found while scrolling my Facebook Feed. I had AI build the one below that I texted to my conservative hunting and fishing buddies. Note: I had it say “Vote on or before Nov 3!” because this year in Minnesota we can begin voting early in person on October 16. Like me, many of my deer hunting buddies will be in the woods on November 3, so I wanted to encourage them to vote early.
Elected officials at the federal, state, county and local levels influence firearm laws, hunting regulations, conservation funding, wildlife management and access to public lands. Local ordinances can even determine where and how firearms or archery equipment may legally be used.
These important local decisions don't make national headlines; they're made in a county commission meeting or a local election decided by a handful of votes. Read that again — a handful of votes! Get off your butt and vote.
Remember, too, that the people elected to local offices today may become the lawmakers shaping state and national policy tomorrow. If we sportsmen and sportswomen want our perspectives represented, we need to participate.
Check the Report Card
One helpful tool that I rely on each election cycle is the National Shooting Sports Foundation's Congressional Report Card. Click here to check it out.
Let me give you a quick example for my home state of Minnesota. While the Report Card doesn’t cover local elections, I used it when researching Minnesota’s governor’s race between Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth. Because Klobuchar served in the U.S. Senate, her name shows up in the 2026 U.S. Senate Report Card; she received a grade of “D-” from the NSSF. That’s not a typo, Klobuchar received a “D-”.
Demuth isn’t listed in the Report Card because she hasn’t served in the U.S. House or Senate, but a little online research shows that she is endorsed by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, the National Rifle Association, and the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. For me, it was a simple decision to vote for Lisa Demuth. (I voted via absentee ballot a week ago.)
FYI: The National Shooting Sports Foundation's #GUNVOTE campaign encourages firearm owners, hunters and shooting sports enthusiasts to register, stay informed and vote. Its website, GunVote.org, offers voter registration and educational resources for people interested in participating in elections and understanding issues affecting the firearm-owning community.
Elections Have Consequences
Let me circle back to my home state of Minnesota to make a point about why every vote matters. Right now, Minnesota has the most narrowly divided Legislature in its history: 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans. Minnesota’s Senate has a 34-33 Democrat majority, while the Minnesota House is tied 67-67.
In Senate District 41, the Democrat incumbent beat the Republican challenger by only 321 votes in 2022. (The population in Senate District 41 is close to 90,000 people.) In other words, if 322 more non-voting Republicans in District 41 had gotten off the couch during the last election, the entire Minnesota Senate would have tilted in favor of Republicans.
That 67-67 tie in the Minnesota House meant Republicans could stop much of the asinine legislation put forth recently by Democrats, including serious attacks on the Second Amendment. This year, if Democrats keep the Senate and the Governor’s seat, and win control of the House — a trifecta — Minnesota will quickly become the Midwest’s version of California. IMO, my state’s march toward Socialism will quicken, and I’ll have to give serious consideration to moving, probably to one of the Dakotas, Montana or Wyoming.
Because of the results of previous elections in Minneapolis and statewide — Minnesota hasn’t had a Republican governor since 2011 — all residents, including me, have lived with the consequences. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past handful of years, you’re aware of Minneapolis’ rioting, looting, fraud and most recently, gang violence, which has now expanded beyond the inner city and is affecting those living in the suburbs.
Example: During spring 2020, the current Minneapolis mayor asked law enforcement to stand-down and allowed the city’s Third Precinct Police Station to be burned to the ground by rioters. The current governor didn’t intervene, either. I watched it happen live on TV and couldn’t believe what was happening to my city.
I grew up in northeast Minneapolis, within sight of the city’s tallest building, the IDS Tower. During the late 1970s and through the 1980s, my friends and I walked and rode our 10-speed bikes anywhere and everywhere in “Nordeast,” even a few hours after sunset. Safety was never a concern. After college, during the 1990s, I often fished Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis for bass and muskies, sometimes from shore, other times from my 12-foot johnboat. The musky bite was awesome, especially after dark.
Today? The idea of walking through my old neighborhood is terrifying. The same is true of fishing within Minneapolis. The chance of me being harassed or even harmed while fishing after dark along the shore of Lake Harriet or Lake Calhoun would be extremely high. It’s just not worth the risk. FYI: In another example of “elections have consequences,” those in leadership positions recently changed the name of Lake Calhoun (a name given in 1817) to Bde Maka Ska. They recently changed our state flag, too. You can’t make this stuff up.
I’m not holding my breath, but it’s my hope that Minneapolis and Minnesota can get back to being the wonderful and safe city and state that I remember. It all starts with voting and electing leaders who share this same desire.
Final Thoughts
Voting doesn't guarantee that every preferred policy becomes law, and we hunters and anglers don't have to agree on every political issue. But participating gives you and me an opportunity to help shape the decisions affecting our traditions.
Vote — and beg your hunting and fishing buddies to do the same.
