STEWARTVILLE, MN — Congressional candidate Jake Johnson is calling for immediate bipartisan action to protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and reopen the federal government. This comes after Congressman Brad Finstad, who chairs the House Subcommittee overseeing SNAP, led the effort to slash the program by nearly $200 billion.

In a new video filmed in his hometown of Stewartville, Johnson shares his own story of growing up as one of eleven kids in a working-class family that relied on SNAP to make ends meet.

“Food stamps were a vital part of how my parents kept food on our table,” Johnson says in the video. “But today, food is more expensive than ever. Families who are doing everything right are still coming up short at the checkout line. And the same politicians who caused these prices with tariffs and handouts to big corporations are now trying to gut the program that keeps kids from going hungry.”

Johnson’s lived experience contrasts sharply with Finstad’s background and record. Finstad is a multimillionaire and one of the most partisan members of Congress. He is the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture, which cut $186 billion from SNAP in the same bill that gave $1 trillion in tax breaks to the richest 1% of Americans. Meanwhile, Johnson, a public school teacher and a union leader, is running for Congress to bring down costs for working families and take on the corruption that got us here in the first place.

During this government shutdown, Finstad has been reading off his partisan talking points and refusing to do anything that would actually end this stalemate. Meanwhile, Johnson has highlighted how he would be a bipartisan problem solver, calling for a deal where both sides give up some of their demands in order to end the shutdown and get food to hungry kids.

The full video is available here.

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