MARSHALL — It’s been an unusual campaign season — but Michelle Fischbach said so far, it’s had some positives. Coronavirus has put a stop to some traditional summer campaign activities, like appearing at community festivals or Farmfest. But on the other hand, she’s been getting to spend more time talking one-on-one with voters in Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District.

“We did a lot of phone calling,” as well as Zoom meetings, Fischbach said. “It filled in there.” Now that some COVID-19 restrictions are relaxing, Fischbach said she’s begun holding smaller meetings with area residents.

“Right now, it’s really nice to talk to the small groups,” she said. “People are really happy to sit down and talk to us about what’s going on in the district.”

Fischbach, R-Paynesville, is a former Minnesota state senator and former Minnesota Lieutenant Governor. She is running for Congress against Rep. Collin Peterson in CD 7.

Fischbach was in Marshall on Monday, as part of her campaign in southwest Minnesota.

“We are talking to people now, to take their message to Washington, D.C.,” Fischbach said. Fischbach said part of what she’s hearing is that residents of CD7 are upset by the agenda being supported by Democrats like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Fischbach said she believes legislators should work with President Donald Trump on economic growth, instead of fighting him.

Another concern Fischbach said she’s hearing consistently — from both farmers and business owners — is overregulation. The examples range from regulations on how contractors can classify employees to farmers’ frustrations with Minnesota’s buffer law. The buffer law might be a state law, but it’s still considered an overreach by many Minnesotans, she said.

Farmers want to be able to run their farms, Fischbach said. “They are the best conservationists. Their money is in their land,” and they won’t abuse it, she said.

Fischbach said she plans to bring concerns about overregulation to Washington.

“We should be reducing regulation,” but current Congressional leadership isn’t sympathetic to those concerns, Fischbach said. “With Nancy Pelosi in charge, businesses are not being heard.”

“Democrats on the federal level are causing a lot of problems,” Fischbach said. Passing of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which would help U.S. agriculture and business, “was needlessly delayed because of impeachment,” she said. Fischbach said Peterson should have fought for the USMCA.

Fischbach said she would support Minnesota business and agriculture on issues like workforce development and education. In addition to making sure there are good jobs here, businesses need to be able to hire people and make sure they are trained properly, she said.

Fischbach said she’s been asking area farmers and business owners how they are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While some of the people she’s spoken with were participating in the Paycheck Protection Program, many others were part of essential businesses and were still working. However, Fischbach said she has heard concerns from farmers and smaller meat processors about regulations making it difficult for them to cope with the fallout from COVID-19 outbreaks at large meatpacking facilities. Regulatory requirements could make it more difficult to euthanize hogs that couldn’t be butchered, she said.

“Nobody is advocating that they do it unsafely,” Fischbach said. But in the long run, meat processing plants may need to do some reconfiguring to get back to work safely, she said.