Jason Mark Lewis (born September 23, 1955) is an American politician and former conservative radio personality who served as the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 2nd congressional district from 2017 until 2019. The district included most of the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities. A member of the Republican Party, he was a radio talk show host and a conservative political commentator before serving in Congress. He hosted the nationally syndicated Jason Lewis Show, based out of KSTP (AM) in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul radio market, from 2009 to 2014.
Lewis was elected to Congress in 2016 defeating Democrat Angie Craig. He succeeded retiring Republican incumbent John Kline. He lost his bid for a second term in 2018 in a rematch against Craig. He was the Republican nominee in the 2020 U.S. Senate election in Minnesota. He was defeated by incumbent Democrat Tina Smith by a margin of 5.2 points, making it the closest Senate election in Minnesota since 2008. Some election observers attribute this close election to two pro-marijuana legalization parties taking a combined 7.69% of the vote.
Early life and education
Lewis was born in 1955 in Waterloo, Iowa. He earned a master's degree in political science from the University of Colorado at Denver as well as a Bachelor of Arts in education and business from the University of Northern Iowa.
Career
Radio
Lewis's show was syndicated nationally by the Premiere Radio Networks and the Genesis Communications Network. Before that, he broadcast locally for ten years on KSTP in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area and then on WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina for three years. In 2006 Lewis moved back to Minnesota to the newly established KTLK-FM.
On the February 17, 2009, episode of his show, Lewis announced that his show would be syndicated nationally, effective February 23, 2009. Since 2007 Lewis had been one of the most frequently used and most popular guest hosts of Rush Limbaugh's radio program, allowing him to reach a nationwide audience.
On August 8, 2011, The Jason Lewis Show was picked up for national syndication by the Genesis Communications Network. On the July 31, 2014, episode, Lewis announced he was leaving the show to devote more time to a website he helped co-found.
In 2018, CNN reviewed many hours of audiotape recorded during the years when Lewis served as a substitute host for Rush Limbaugh. Lewis's comments included: "Now, are we beyond those days where a woman can behave as a slut, but you can't call her a slut?" and "One of the reasons that the Democrats love the quote unquote female issue is because they know women vote more liberally than men do. Now you could say in a very, very sexist, misogynistic way that 'Well, that's because women just don't understand money. They don't understand, they're—they don't handle finances. They're guided by emotion, not reason. Why, that's why they didn't have the vote for a full century in the country."
Lewis defended his comments by saying that he was paid to be provocative. "There's a difference between [being] a politician and a pundit", he added.
Writing
Lewis is the author of the 2011 book Power Divided is Power Checked: The Argument for States Rights. In bonus commentary added to the 2016 audiobook version, Lewis said that many state laws prohibit consensual conduct and most of those laws are decided by the states. In the book he writes, "slavery was mercifully conquered", and suggests that "emancipated compensation" (compensated emancipation) was rejected by the Lincoln Administration—raising the question whether Abraham Lincoln "exploited the issue" of slavery to justify the "War Between the States." The book is a defense of federalism and calls for a constitutional amendment allowing "any state to peaceably leave the union."
U.S House of Representatives
Elections
1990
In 1990, Lewis ran for Congress in Colorado's 2nd congressional district. He was defeated by incumbent Democrat David Skaggs.
2016
In October 2015, Lewis filed to run for U.S. Congress in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, and was endorsed at the Minnesota Republican Party's convention on the 6th ballot on May 7, 2016. He won the four-way August primary with 46% of the vote.
The race was widely considered one of 2016's most competitive congressional elections. Roll Call journalist Alex Roarty wrote that Lewis had not openly embraced Donald Trump, but that he had been "unafraid to embrace many of the presumptive presidential nominee's trademarks: tough talk, an aversion to political correctness, and a focus on border security."