Far-Leftist Defeats Mainstream Liberal In Democratic Primary For Minnesota Senate Seat

Left-wing Democratic Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Minnesota Senate primary to replace retiring Democrat Sen. Tina Smith.

Flanagan led Democratic Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig 59% to 39.4% with 99% of the vote reporting as of early Wednesday morning, according to The Associated Press and NBC News.

Craig was the mainstream liberal, establishment-backed challenger to Flanagan in a race largely framed as a contest between a mainstream candidate and a left-wing candidate. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Minnesota Fraud Scandal Could Put State’s Open Senate Seat In Play During Midterms, Thune Says)

Flanagan, who holds the official DFL endorsement, received support from figures including independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith, and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. Craig drew backing from Democratic establishment figures, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The race centered on issues like immigration, fraud, oversight of state programs, campaign financing and Israel-Gaza policy. Craig faced scrutiny over her past vote for the Laken Riley Act, while Flanagan emphasized her opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies and support for left-wing policies. (RELATED: One Year After Laken Riley Act, One Democrat Doesn’t Want To Talk About Her ‘Yes’ Vote)

Flanagan entered the race in February 2025 after Smith announced she would not seek reelection. She secured the DFL endorsement ahead of the Aug. 11 primary, emerging as the leading progressive alternative to Craig.

The Minnesota lieutenant governor has promoted progressive policies in the state on issues including transgender ideology, late-term abortion, and expanding releases of prison inmates who committed serious crimes.

Flanagan’s support for transgender issues has also drawn scrutiny following the 2025 shooting at Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic School, where the suspect, who had identified as transgender, killed two children and wounded others.

Two years before the shooting, Flanagan appeared publicly wearing a shirt emblazoned with a knife and the words, “Protect trans children.”

In the final days of the primary, Flanagan also drew attention for remarks praising Somali migrants during a visit to a Somali market. (RELATED: Minnesota’s Lt Gov Takes Pandering To Somalis To The Next Level)

Minnesota continues to face scrutiny over widespread fraud in publicly funded programs, including alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars involving programs serving the state’s Somali community.

In February 2023, just hours after being assaulted in her Washington, D.C., apartment, Craig and 31 Democrat colleagues voted in favor of a resolution to block the D.C. Council’s Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, which would have lowered penalties for a number of violent offenses.

Flanagan strongly backs providing transgender medical procedures, known as “gender affirming care,” to young people. Transgender medical procedures can harm people’s mental or physical health. 95% of young transgender people on testosterone develop pelvic floor dysfunction; most have bowel issues and sexual dysfunction. As the Telegraph reported, “Around 87 per cent…had urinary symptoms such as incontinence, frequent toilet visits and bed-wetting, while 74 per cent had bowel issues including constipation or being unable to hold stools or wind in. Some 53 per cent suffered from sexual dysfunction…Almost half had an ‘orgasm disorder’, while a quarter suffered from pain during sexual intercourse.”

Transgender treatments can lead to a lifetime of pain, discomfort, and medications. As Britain’s National Health Service explains, hormones “need to be taken for the rest of your life, even if you have gender surgery.” An FDA official who supported giving minors puberty blockers conceded that they actually increase suicidality. Indeed, the “FDA knew ‘gender affirming’ puberty blockers increase ‘suicidality’ in 2017,” reported Just the News.

Even the transgender lawyer who challenged Tennessee’s restrictions on transgender treatments for kids admitted to the Supreme Court that “completed suicide is thankfully and admittedly rare” among transgender youth, even those not given gender-affirming treatment, and that “there is no evidence…that this [transgender-affirming] treatment reduces completed suicide.” The ACLU’s Chase Strangio admitted that fact to the Supreme Court.

Yet doctors who did sex changes often falsely told parents that they needed to give their kids a sex change to keep them from committing suicide, even though this isn’t true. One of America’s most prominent gender doctors, “Dr. Olson-Kennedy disclosed to how she speaks with parents of gender dysphoric patients: ‘We often ask parents, “Would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter?’”

Letting prison inmates out early, as Flanagan has supported, can increase the crime rate.  When Italy released inmates early, that increased its crime rate significantly, according to a 2014 study. (See Alessandro Barbarino & Giovanni Mastrobuono, the Incapacitation Effect of Incarceration from Several Italian Collective Pardons, American Economic Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-37 (2014)). Other studies find similar results.

When El Salvador increased its incarceration rate, its murder rate fell by more than 90%.

When prison inmates are released, they tend to commit more crimes. Nationally, 81.9% of all state prisoners released in 2008 were subsequently arrested within a decade, including 74.5% of those 40 or older at the time of their release. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Prisoners in 24 States Released in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008-2018), pg. 4, Table 4)).