Independent in key House race suspends campaign, saying he was 'pawn' in election fraud scheme

A congressional candidate who said he was tricked by Democrats into running as a spoiler in a competitive House race in Minnesota suspended his campaign Thursday and endorsed his Republican rival.

Thomas Bowman, an independent running in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District, said he'd come to the realization that he was a ''pawn'' for Democrats deceptively working to split the conservative vote.

Bowman was among several candidates recruited by the Patriots Run Project, which worked to install pro-Trump conservatives as independent candidates in at least eight key House and Senate races.

An AP investigation found an array of Democratic consulting firms and donors are secretly driving the effort, which used deceptive Facebook pages and websites to recruit candidates and funded efforts to qualify for the ballot.

Bowman said he would suspend his campaign and endorse Republican Joe Teirab, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in the suburban Minneapolis district. His name will remain on the ballot.

''I certainly spent a lot of time and effort influencing the race as a pawn in this scheme here,'' said Bowman, 71, a retiree who had been campaigning as a constitutional conservative.

In an interview with AP last month, Bowman said he suspected he may have been recruited by Democratic operatives hoping to reelect Craig and that he received nearly $20,000 in donations to gather signatures for ballot access. At that time, he said he saw nothing wrong with the arrangement.

''Thomas is a true patriot for his willingness to boldly call out the dirty tricks that Angie Craig's allies pulled in an attempt to interfere in the election,'' Teirab said in a statement.

The Craig campaign said it had no involvement ''with Mr. Bowman's effort to get on the ballot.''

The Steinglass family, which has declined comment, and a number of other Democratic donors have given to other candidates recruited by the Patriots Run Project.

Some of the group's recruits did not make the ballot, and Bowman is the second to drop out after realizing they had been manipulated.

In Iowa, the Division of Criminal Investigation has opened an election fraud inquiry after independent candidate Joe Wiederien said he'd been tricked and withdrew his name from the ballot in a competitive House race.

In Wisconsin, ''America First'' candidate Thomas Leager announced Monday that he would stay in the race against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and her Republican challenger Eric Hovde. He said he had ''made the mistake of trusting the Patriots Run Project" but was undaunted.

''At the end of the day, I'm grateful and blessed to have the chance to try and serve the state and country I love to the best of my ability,'' he said.