Do we like Peggy Flanagan?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A consistent record for LGBTQ+ people, kids and families, with one contested fight (her ICE stance) and some partisan heat she's had to wear.
Flanagan grew up in St. Louis Park, raised by a single mum who relied on Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers and free school lunches. Her dad spent decades pursuing land claims for the White Earth Nation. She says he wanted to burn the system down, while she wanted to get inside it and change it.
She did exactly that. After the University of Minnesota she worked on Native education, trained organisers, sat on the Minneapolis school board, and ran the Children's Defense Fund in Minnesota. She served in the state House from 2015 to 2019, then became Tim Walz's lieutenant governor.
On the harm test, there is nothing nasty from her and a lot on the other side of the ledger. She told The Advocate that “civil rights and human rights should always be something that Democrats stand for” and pushed Democrats not to retreat on trans rights. The Human Rights Campaign says the Walz-Flanagan administration banned conversion therapy and that she has pledged to back the Equality Act. Conservative outlets have attacked her over this, but that's a disagreement over trans rights, and on that she's on the side of trans people.
The mud that did get thrown was a mixed bag. In October the Wall Street Journal reported she hadn't qualified for Phi Beta Kappa; her campaign produced a statement from the society's chief operating officer verifying her membership. Earlier, a journalist posted screenshots claiming she was in a Signal chat coordinating anti-ICE protests; she called it “ridiculous” and denied it, and the screenshots were never independently verified.
The more serious line of attack is the state's alleged fraud in public programs, where prosecutors have charged others. A former state GOP chair argued the governor and lieutenant governor were responsible for administering the laws. Flanagan said anyone who steals from taxpayers should be prosecuted and that Walz had taken full accountability. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing herself, so this is about oversight, not misconduct.
On policy she's well left of centre and says so. She backs Medicare for All, and after the primary she told Fox 9 “we have to rip ICE apart”, arguing it shouldn't get more federal money. Where you land depends on whether you read that as a call to rebuild a runaway agency or as a step too far; she also says she wants a path to citizenship and a system built on safety and dignity.