Minnesota’s congressional candidates are searching for ways to stand apart. They should start by addressing disability, aging and caregiving—issues that touch nearly every family.
As Minnesota’s open congressional races take shape, candidates are doing what candidates always do. They’re talking about inflation, public safety, immigration, health care, and whatever dysfunction in Washington happens to be driving headlines that week.
Fair enough. Those issues matter.
But as I listen to candidates looking for ways to distinguish themselves from one another, I keep coming back to a question: why is nobody talking seriously about disability and aging?
Not as a throwaway line in a position paper. Not as a brief stop at a disability services provider during campaign season. I mean treating it as a central issue worthy of the same attention candidates give the economy, housing, or health care.
Because the reality is that disability and aging aren’t side issues. They are woven through all of them.
Spend enough time around disability services, senior housing, home care, caregiving, or long-term supports and you quickly realize these challenges touch almost every Minnesota family sooner or later. We may not all experience disability ourselves, but we all know someone who does. We all have parents who are aging, relatives who need support, friends balancing careers with caregiving responsibilities, or children whose futures depend on systems that are already struggling to keep up.
Yet the political conversation rarely reflects that reality.
For years, I have watched policymakers treat disability and aging as specialized topics that belong in their own corner of government. The discussion gets delegated to committees, agencies, providers, and advocates while candidates focus on issues they believe have broader appeal.
I would argue they’re getting that calculation wrong.
The workforce crisis affecting disability services isn’t just a disability issue. It’s a labor issue. When providers can’t recruit and retain enough direct support professionals, families often become the backup system. Parents leave jobs. Spouses reduce hours. Careers get put on hold. That’s not merely a human services challenge. It’s an economic one.
The same is true for housing. The same is true for health care. The same is true for community development.
Politicians love to talk about helping people live independently, stay connected to their communities, and contribute to the economy. That’s exactly what quality disability and aging services make possible every day.
What strikes me most is how much political opportunity is being left on the table.
Candidates spend enormous amounts of time trying to identify forgotten voters and underserved constituencies. Meanwhile, one of the largest groups of people affected by public policy remains largely invisible in campaign conversations. People with disabilities, older adults, family caregivers, direct support professionals, and those who care about them represent millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans.
And unlike many issues that immediately divide voters into competing camps, this is one of the few areas where broad agreement is still possible.
Most people support helping older adults remain in their homes and communities as they age. Most people support creating opportunities for people with disabilities to work and live independently. Most people recognize the value of family caregivers. Most people understand there is something fundamentally wrong when the workers we trust with our most vulnerable loved ones struggle to earn a living wage themselves.
None of this should be controversial.
Which makes the silence all the more noticeable.
If I were advising candidates in these races, I’d tell them to stop looking for the next viral issue and start paying attention to the people hiding in plain sight. The Minnesotans raising children with disabilities. The adults trying to remain independent. The aging parents hoping to stay in their homes. The caregivers holding everything together behind the scenes.
Those voters aren’t asking to be the center of attention. But they are asking to be seen.
In a campaign season where every candidate is searching for a way to stand apart, it’s remarkable that so few seem willing to start there.
