Full profile
Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District has a contested U.S. House race in 2026, with four candidates seeking the seat. Incumbent Democrat Betty Mccollum is running alongside DFL candidate Aswar Rahman and Republican candidates Paul Xiong and Paul Wikstrom.
The general election is scheduled for Nov. 3, 2026. The result will determine who represents the district in the U.S. House.
The four-candidate field
The race includes two candidates identified as Republicans, one as a Democrat and one as a DFL candidate. Mccollum is the only candidate identified as the incumbent, meaning she currently holds the office at stake in the election.
Xiong and Wikstrom share the Republican label, but they are separate candidates in the race. Mccollum and Rahman also have distinct candidacies, with Mccollum identified as a Democrat and Rahman identified as DFL.
Because four candidates are running, voters following MN-4 will have more than a two-candidate contest to consider. The candidates’ names, political labels and Mccollum’s incumbent status form the central distinctions in the race.
Paul Xiong and Betty Mccollum
Paul Xiong is running as a Republican for the 4th District seat. He is one of two Republican candidates in the four-person field and is seeking the U.S. House office that will be decided in the November 2026 general election.
Betty Mccollum is running as a Democrat and is the incumbent in the 4th District. She is one of four candidates seeking the seat and the only person in the field identified as currently holding the office.
Aswar Rahman and Paul Wikstrom
Aswar Rahman is running as a DFL candidate for the 4th District seat. He is one of four candidates in the contested race and is seeking the U.S. House office on the ballot in the November 2026 general election.
Paul Wikstrom is running as a Republican for the 4th District seat. He is one of two Republican candidates in the four-person field and is seeking the same U.S. House office as Xiong, Mccollum and Rahman.
Each candidate is part of the same districtwide contest. The winner of that contest will hold one U.S. House seat, rather than a separate seat for each political label represented in the field.
What makes the race contested
The MN-4 election is contested because more than one candidate is seeking the office. The field presents voters with four individual candidacies: Xiong as a Republican, Mccollum as a Democrat, Rahman as a DFL candidate and Wikstrom as a Republican.
The race also includes both an incumbent and challengers. Mccollum enters the election as the sitting officeholder, while Xiong, Rahman and Wikstrom are seeking the seat she holds. Incumbency describes a candidate’s current office status; it does not decide the result.
The next fixed point in the contest is Election Day. Voters in Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District will make their choice in the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026.
