Minnesota state Representative Kaela Berg launched a campaign for the U.S. House seat in Minnesota's second congressional district in the 2026 midterm elections. The seat is being vacated by Angie Craig, who is running for a Senate seat.

Berg, who became a state representative for Saint Paul in 2020, has continued working as a flight attendant when the state legislature is not in session. She has worked as a flight attendant for 30 years and has held both roles for the past six years.

"Even as a state legislator, I still live paycheck to paycheck. I have to have both of those jobs to make ends meet. I've gone without healthcare during the pandemic because I didn't qualify through my employer," Berg said. "These systems are designed to keep working people down."

Berg has served as vice-president of the Endeavor Association of Flight Attendants, which represents flight attendants for Endeavor Air, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines based in Minneapolis. She has also served as interim president and chair of her local union's government affairs committee, where she learned how to negotiate contracts and lobby for policies important to workers.

"I realized that the things that I had learned as an organizer and a labor leader were really important to take into public service, my whole reason for getting involved in politics was to fight for hard-working families," Berg said. "There is no one better to fight for us than one of us, and working people have not been at the table."

Berg cited the affordability crisis, the dismantling of the National Labor Relations Board, and attempts to strip collective bargaining agreements from hundreds of thousands of federal workers as reasons for running for Congress. She said middle-class constituents in her district are struggling to cover necessities like childcare, health insurance premiums, gas, and groceries. She supports universal healthcare, combating corporate influence and corruption in Congress, and halting tariffs implemented under the Trump administration.

Berg is one of several labor movement candidates running for Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. The Democratic primary for the seat also includes Minnesota state senator Matt Klein and former state senator Matt Little. All three candidates are seeking 60% of delegates to secure an endorsement from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party on 9 May. The Democratic primary is set for 11 August 2026. The district favors Democrats by three percentage points, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index.

In January, federal immigration officers killed two unarmed civilians, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota, an operation that incited mass protests in the state. There is an ongoing federal law enforcement presence in Minnesota at the behest of the Trump administration.

"We have had a violent occupation of ICE agents in our streets for months on end," Berg said. "They're still terrorizing our Somali community, especially because of the fraud allegations. We know the agenda from this administration is to demonize immigrants and our communities, because that's how they control people, and we're simply not going to stand for it."