Minnesota — 2nd District

To share the story of your loved one, you can submit an obituary using any of the following methods:

Email: Please include the information from our Obituary Checklist (referenced below) to [email protected].

Online: Use our Self-Service Portal for a step-by-step guided process.

Need assistance? Our obituary desk is here to help. Please call us at 651-228-5263 with any questions regarding the process or deadlines.

General Information:

Your full name,

Address (City, State, Zip Code),

Phone number,

And an alternate phone number (if any)

Obituary Specification:

Name of Deceased,

Obituary Text,

A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo.

Ad Run dates

There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply.

If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information.

Policies:

Verification of Death:

In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home/cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death. If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program, or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification.

Please allow enough time to contact them especially during their limited weekend hours.

A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose but only one of these two options are necessary.

Guestbook and Outside Websites:

We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter.

Obituary Process:

Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear.

Please review the proof carefully. We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines.

After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing.

Online:

Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions.

Payment Procedure:

Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents.

Credit Card: Payment accepted by phone only due to PCI (Payment Card Industry) regulations

EFT: Check by phone. Please provide your routing number and account number.

Rates:

The minimum charge is $162 for the first 12 lines.

Every line after the first 12 is $12.

If the ad is under 12 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162.

Obituaries including more than 40 lines will receive a 7.5% discount per line.

On a second run date, receive a 20% discount off both the first and second placement.

Place three obituaries and the third placement will be free of charge.

Each photo published is $125 per day. For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500.

Deadlines:

Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested.

Hours

Deadline (no exceptions)

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Photos

MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST

Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries.

Please call or email us for more memoriam information

Please call 651-228-5280 for more information.

HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS)

Please submit your memoriam ad to [email protected] or call 651-228-5280.

Three Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidates with experience in the Minnesota Legislature are vying for the party nomination in Tuesday’s primary for the congressional district Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig will leave early next year.

The 2nd Congressional District, which includes south metro suburbs like Eagan and Inver Grove Heights and nearby rural areas, is the only Minnesota congressional district where an incumbent isn’t running in 2026.

Republicans largely held the district until Craig first won election in 2018 and solidified leads in three subsequent elections. Craig, who is running for U.S. Senate, hasn’t endorsed any candidate.

Rep. Kaela Berg, DFL-Burnsville, a flight attendant and union organizer; Sen. Matt Klein, DFL-Mendota Heights, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic; and DFL-endorsed Matt Little, a former state senator and mayor of Lakeville, are hoping to challenge Republican state Sen. Eric Pratt of Prior Lake in the November general election. Pratt, who won the state Republican endorsement at their May convention in Duluth, isn’t facing any primary challengers.

Little, who is generally viewed as the favorite with support from the DFL and statewide officials like Attorney General Keith Ellison and State Auditor Julie Blaha, takes a more progressive bent than Klein. Berg has stuck a more progressive tone as well.

The candidates depart on their support for Medicare for all, a single-payer health system in which the government handles billing. Little has made advocacy on that issue a central feature of his campaign.

Meanwhile, Berg and Klein, while expressing support for universal health care at some point in the future, have avoided committing to an immediate push for the single-payer system advocated more directly by Little and more famously in recent years by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Kaela Berg

A second-term member of the Minnesota House, Berg says she’s running for Congress to “fight for hardworking families.” A mother of two, she says she worked during the COVID pandemic without health insurance, relying on MinnesotaCare.

She’s used that background as a theme in her campaign in the 2nd District, calling herself “the only working class candidate in this race” in a debate on WCCO radio last month, saying she still lives “paycheck to paycheck” between her two jobs.

Berg carried a bill in the Minnesota House banning binary triggers — which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire more rapidly — after one was used in a 2024 Burnsville shooting that killed two police officers and a firefighter in Burnsville. It eventually became law but was overturned by a Ramsey County judge in 2025 because it was lumped into a larger multi-subject bill.

Berg took office in 2021.

Matt Klein

Of the three Democratic candidates, Klein most closely resembles Craig on positions. He’s an internal medicine doctor who worked at Hennepin County Medical Center for most of his career and says he’s concerned about the growing cost of health care.

Klein says he backs a public option for health insurance as a first step toward controlling health costs and expects universal health care to become a reality eventually. But he does not aggressively advocate for a single payer system.

During his time in the Legislature, Klein has supported bills to ban so-called assault weapons like the AR-15 in Minnesota and to legalize sports betting. Neither has become law. He served as the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection chair since early 2025.

He’s received the endorsement of numerous Senate DFL colleagues, including fellow members of his Blue Dog Coalition — a group of self-described moderate Democrats from suburban and rural districts.

Klein took office in 2017.

Matt Little

Before serving one term in the Minnesota Senate from 2017 to 2021, Little served two terms as the mayor of Lakeville, his hometown. He decided to run for the city’s top office in 2011 after serving on the city council for a year. At the time, he was a 27-year-old law student.

After losing the 2018 Senate election to Republican Zack Duckworth, Little exited politics and runs a private personal injury law practice in Lakeville. In an Minnesota Public Radio candidate forum in April, he said he got involved in the race because of health care, particularly because of his mother, who suffers from chronic illnesses.

Little has advocated for a single-payer health care system in the U.S., Medicare for all, and has said he believes ICE should be replaced by a new agency — something his Klein has stopped short of supporting but Berg has also called for.

The District

Before Craig won the 2nd Congressional District in 2018, it had been held by Republicans since 2002. Craig lost narrowly to conservative radio host and one-term U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis in the 2016 election but returned to defeat him two years later.

The district was considered highly competitive in subsequent elections, but as Craig continued to hold on to the seat, Republican challengers struggled to reestablish a foothold. Despite the seat opening, national political observers like Cook Political Report have not given Republicans a better chance in the district.

The 2nd District includes the Dakota County suburbs of Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Hastings, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights and West St. Paul. In Washington County, it includes Cottage Grove and parts of Woodbury. The district also includes Scott and Le Sueur counties, encompassing Prior Lake and New Prague. In Rice County, it includes Northfield.