Why Quentin Wittrock Has No Business Running as a Republican in CD3
By Tyler Bass | Bass for Congress | Vote August 11th — Republican Primary
Let me be straightforward with you, because that’s the only way I know how to operate.
Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District deserves a true Republican in Congress. Someone who voted for Donald Trump. Someone who believes in secure borders, American workers, and common-sense conservative values. Someone who wasn’t handed the race before a single vote was cast.
Quentin Wittrock is not that person.
And I think it’s time the voters of CD3 knew exactly what I know — because I’ve been in the room. I’ve been at the conventions. I’ve had the conversations. And what I’ve seen and heard tells me everything about who Quentin Wittrock really is and who he really works for.
A Never Trumper Running as a Republican. Let That Sink In.
Let’s start with the most fundamental question any Republican primary voter should be asking: did this person actually vote for our candidates?
I can tell you, because Quentin told me himself: he voted for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. He voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And then he voted for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Read that again.
The man asking you — a Republican voter in CD3 — to send him to Congress as your Republican representative voted against Donald Trump twice. He voted for the people who gave us open borders, record inflation, skyrocketing housing costs, and the most radical left-wing agenda this country has seen in generations. He voted for the candidates who did all of this to us.
In Republican circles, we have a name for that: Never Trumper.
And in Republican circles, we all know what Never Trumper means. It means you chose the Democrat — twice — over the Republican nominee for president of the United States. It means you looked at Hillary Clinton and said, “Yes, she’s my choice.” It means you looked at Kamala Harris and said, “Yes, she’s my choice.” It means that when it mattered most — when the future of this country was on the ballot — you were on the wrong side.
I raised this directly at our GOP convention in front of hundreds of Republican delegates and voters. I stood up and told the room what Quentin had told me. And what did Quentin do?
He sat there and glared at me.
Not a denial. Not a rebuttal. Not a single word to challenge what I said. Just a stare.
If what I said wasn’t true, he had every opportunity to stand up and say so. He chose not to. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about what that silence means.
The Pressure Campaign to Clear the Field
Before we get into Quentin’s policy positions — and we will, because they’re just as troubling as his voting record — I want to talk about what happened behind the scenes of this race, because the people of CD3 deserve to know how their Republican Party has been operating.
Early in my congressional campaign, I was approached by people in positions of influence within the GOP structure and told, point blank, to drop out. Or at the very least, to step back and run for state house instead.
Why? Because they already had their candidate. His name was Quentin Wittrock. The decision had apparently already been made — not by Republican voters, not through a primary, not through any democratic process — but in conversations among party insiders who decided it was Quentin’s turn.
I didn’t drop out. I didn’t step aside. Because this race belongs to the voters of CD3, not to whoever got to the party leadership first.
What I witnessed next only reinforced my concerns. On the morning of the GOP convention — before a single vote had been cast — I watched Quentin take all of the delegates out for breakfast. A nice gesture, you might say. But it’s worth asking: how did Quentin know who the delegates were and how to reach them?
Because here’s what I know for a fact: the GOP refused to give me delegate contact information. I wouldn’t sign the endorsement agreement on their terms, so they withheld names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses of the delegates I had every right to reach as a candidate in this race. Quentin, on the other hand, had all of it. He was given access I was denied.
That is not a level playing field. That is a party apparatus working the refs for a predetermined outcome.
And on the day of the convention itself, I personally witnessed Quentin’s wife and several GOP leadership figures walking out of a closed room together before the voting began. I don’t know what was said in that room. I can only tell you what I saw. But when a candidate who has been pre-selected by party insiders is meeting in closed rooms with those same insiders on the morning of the vote, the optics speak for themselves.
Quentin Wittrock is a lawyer. He knows how systems work. He knows how to work a room, work a process, and work relationships. That’s exactly what concerns me about sending him to Washington.
His Policy Positions Are Not Republican Positions
Setting aside his voting record and the convention situation — let’s talk about what Quentin actually believes, because his policy positions are about as far from the Republican mainstream as you can get while still calling yourself a Republican.
On immigration: Quentin supports open borders and wants to expand the H1B visa program. In a congressional district where working-class Minnesotans are already struggling to find good-paying jobs in construction, manufacturing, and the trades, his answer is to bring in more foreign workers to compete for those jobs.
I’ve written at length about the immigration crisis in this district — the cartel pipeline that runs through our labor market, the way undocumented workers are being exploited in roofing crews and restaurant kitchens, the impact on wages and job availability for American workers. Quentin’s position on immigration is not a Republican position. It’s not even a moderate position. It’s a position that benefits employers who want cheap labor at the expense of the workers those employers are supposed to be serving.
On the working people of CD3: Let me tell you what Quentin said in front of an audience that included working-class Republican voters. He bragged — openly and without apparent self-awareness — about making $600 per hour as a lawyer.
Six hundred dollars an hour.
I want you to hold that number next to the reality of the people I talk to every day in this district. The roofer trying to survive on wages that haven’t kept pace with a 111% increase in rent over thirteen years. The factory worker who can’t afford the mortgage on a house his father bought at thirty. The personal trainer — like me, thirteen years ago — scraping together $3,000 a month and hoping it’s enough to stay in the Twin Cities.
Quentin Wittrock brags about making $600 an hour to those same people and expects their votes.
That tells you everything you need to know about whose side he’s on.
I am a business owner. I have built multiple companies. I have made payroll. I have hired workers, trained them, grown them, and invested in their futures. I understand what it means to be responsible not just for your own livelihood but for the people who depend on you. I am one of you.
Quentin Wittrock is not one of you. He is a high-billing attorney who has never had to worry about whether his rent went up or whether he could afford groceries this month. And his policy positions reflect exactly that distance from the reality most CD3 residents live every day.
“Principles Based Politics” — What Does That Actually Mean?
Quentin runs a website called Principles Based Politics. I’ve looked at it carefully, as any voter should.
I’m a businessman. I’ve started, grown, and run multiple companies. I know how business models work — and I know how to read one when I see it. When I look at Quentin’s platform and the structure around his political brand, I see something that raises real questions for me as someone with business experience.
“Principles Based Politics” is not yet an LLC, as far as I can tell. But businesses like this have a way of becoming exactly that — and when they do, the question every voter and donor should ask is: who benefits? Who is paying into the machine, and who is the machine ultimately serving?
I’ll be honest: when I look at the layered structure of how political brands like this are built — the website, the platform, the donor relationships, the political infrastructure — it raises questions in my mind about whether the goal is to serve constituents or to build a revenue-generating political apparatus that serves the people running it.
That is my personal observation as a business owner who has built real companies and knows how money flows through an organization. I’m not making a legal claim. I’m raising a question that I believe Republican voters in CD3 have a right to ask.
What exactly are voters and donors funding when they invest in “Principles Based Politics”? And if Quentin were elected, who would he be working for?
Given everything I’ve described — the pressure campaign to clear the field, the preferential access to delegate information, the closed-room meetings at the convention — I don’t think that’s an unreasonable question to ask.
The Bottom Line: Why Is Quentin Wittrock Running as a Republican?
I have asked myself this question many times over the course of this campaign, and I have never found a satisfying answer.
He voted for Hillary Clinton. He voted for Joe Biden. He voted for Kamala Harris — twice. He supports open borders and H1B visa expansion. He represents the kind of insider, establishment, go-along-to-get-along politics that Republican voters across this country rose up against in 2016 and have been fighting against ever since.
He is not a Republican in any meaningful sense of the word. He is a RINO — Republican In Name Only — and the only reason he is running under the Republican banner is because it’s the most viable path to elected office in a district that has been trending our direction.
Real Republicans in CD3 deserve better. They deserve a candidate who actually voted for Donald Trump. Who actually believes in securing the border. Who actually understands what it’s like to build a business, make payroll, and worry about whether the economy is working for working people. Who wasn’t handed the race by party insiders before the voters had a say.
They deserve someone who, when challenged about their voting record in front of hundreds of people, can answer the challenge — not just sit and glare in silence.
Quentin Wittrock should do the honest thing and either come clean about his actual political beliefs or step aside and let a true Republican represent CD3.
Because the people of this district have been through enough. They’ve watched their rent double. They’ve watched their wages fall behind. They’ve watched their kids leave the state. They’ve watched an establishment political class — in both parties — make decisions that benefit insiders while working people absorb the consequences.
They don’t need another insider. They need a fighter.
I Am That Fighter
I came to the Twin Cities in 2013 with nothing but a work ethic and a belief that Minnesota would reward honest effort. I built companies. I created jobs. I learned this district from the ground up — not from a law office billing $600 an hour, but from job sites, gym floors, and conversations with real people about real problems.
I refused to drop out when the party insiders told me to. I stood up at the convention and said what needed to be said. I have fought for this race every single day because I believe the people of CD3 deserve a representative who actually shares their values, their concerns, and their vision for what this country should be.
On August 11th, Republican voters in CD3 have a choice.
They can vote for a Never Trumper RINO who was handed the race by party insiders, brags about billing $600 an hour, and wants open borders and more visa workers competing for Minnesota jobs.
Or they can vote for a job creator, a business owner, a true conservative, and a genuine Republican who has been fighting for this district from day one.
The choice is clear.
Vote Bass for Congress — August 11th Republican Primary.
