WASHINGTON – Rep. Angie Craig, who has been walking a political tightrope since she first ran for Congress, is taking another risk, plunging into the race for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat.
Craig announced her bid for the seat in a video that featured the jeans-jacketed lawmaker driving a black jeep across the state and interacting with Minnesotans who said they were concerned about the direction of the nation under President Donald Trump.
The video, released on Trump’s 100th day in office, fiercely attacks the president, his tariff policy and the unleashing of Elon Musk on the federal agencies and their workers.
“I’ve had to fight my whole life. And damn if we don’t have a fight going on right now,” Craig says in her video. “There’s chaos and corruption coming out of Washington, crashing down on all of us, every day … A president trampling our rights and freedoms, as he profits for personal gain.”
She also says “a cowardly Republican Party” is “letting it all happen.”
Craig will now run against Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and former state legislator Melisa López Franzen, another DFLer who has declared her candidacy for Smith’s seat, in next year’s Democratic primary.
Craig, 53, has represented a swing district since she won a rematch against Republican Jason Lewis in 2018. If stays in the Senate race, her 2nd congressional district would be up for grabs.
She has bucked her party from time to time – voting for GOP measures that would enhance policing and border security — and is the most moderate Democrat vying for Smith’s seat.
Craig says she has “pissed off” DFLers in the state for crossing the line to vote for GOP initiatives from time to time.
Most recently, Craig voted for the Laken Riley Act, the first piece of legislation President Trump signed into law as he zeroed in on a major priority — immigration.
The legislation, named after a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant in Georgia, directs federal authorities to detain and deport immigrants who are accused — not yet convicted — of specific crimes if they are in the country illegally.
Craig was also one of just 10 Democrats voting to censure Rep. Al Green after the Texas Democrat interrupted Trump’s joint address to Congress last month.
Tim Lindberg, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, said Craig is in “a very tricky position” as a candidate.
Lindberg said she, like Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, has “been deemed not liberal enough” by progressives and not conservative enough by Republicans who might potentially vote for her.
“I think her biggest problem is that she is a good general-election candidate but she could face trouble in the (Democratic) primary unless she goes to the left,” Lindberg said.
That’s because party primaries largely attract the most activist voters; in the Democratic Party, that’s the progressives.
The Republicans who have announced their intention to run for Smith’s seat include Royce White, a controversial former NBA player who lost to Klobuchar last year, and former Navy Seal Adam Schwarze.
But a GOP candidate is likely to face headwinds in 2026, Lindberg said, as the nation weighs the wisdom of a White House and Congress controlled by Republicans.
“When a party controls everything, voters like to balance that out,” he said.
There’s also a traditional swing against the party that occupies the White House in midterm elections and the threat of a weakening economy that could sour voters on the GOP.
From trailer park to Congress
Craig has run, and won, tight races before with the help of relentless campaigning and a fundraising advantage, which she continues to hold against Flanagan and López Franzen, having raised more than $1.2 million in campaign cash as of the end of March.
The video the Craig campaign released Tuesday introduces the lawmaker to Minnesota voters who may not know much about her. The video stresses her as the daughter of a single mom living in a trailer park in Arkansas who put herself through college and rose to become the top executive in two medical device companies.
Before gay marriage was recognized, Craig won a major legal battle in Tennessee when a judge gave her custody of her son with her then-partner as the adoptive parent. Craig later married her wife, Cheryl, in Minnesota and has four children and three grandchildren.
She’s already met voters outside the 2nd Congressional District, which includes the suburbs and rural areas south of the Twin Cities, by holding town halls in the districts of Minnesota’s four Republican U.S. representatives: Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Pete Stauber and Michele Fischbach.
Craig said she ventured into the “reddest” parts of the state because the lawmakers representing those districts decided against holding in-person town halls after their GOP colleagues faced angry constituents at their events.
“I’m here because Tom Emmer won’t show up and listen to you,” Craig said at a town hall in St. Cloud last week.
Angered at Craig’s foray into their territory, Emmer and his Minnesota GOP colleagues have asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate whether the Democrat improperly used office account resources to publicize the town halls.
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