Peggy Flanagan

Margaret Flanagan ( ; born September 22, 1979) is an American politician and Ojibwe activist serving as the 50th lieutenant governor of Minnesota since 2019. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Flanagan served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. She is the Democratic nominee for US Senate in the 2026 Minnesota U.S. Senate race.

Flanagan grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, an inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis. She is a citizen of the White Earth Nation. She started her political career as an organizer for the urban Native American community. Flanagan is the first woman of color elected to statewide office in Minnesota and at the time of her election, she was the highest-ranking Native American woman to hold elected executive office in the country.

On February 13, 2025, Flanagan announced her candidacy for the 2026 United States Senate election in Minnesota. She won the DFL nomination on August 11, 2026, and will face Republican nominee Michele Tafoya in the general election.

Early life and education Flanagan was born on September 22, 1979, in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, Her father was Marvin Manypenny, an American Indian land rights and sovereignty activist. Flanagan has described growing up in a single-parent household that relied at times on public assistance, including food assistance, Medicaid, child-care aid and a Section 8 housing voucher. She is of Irish and Ojibwe descent and is a citizen of the White Earth Nation.

Early political career While in college, Flanagan worked on U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone's campaign, eventually becoming an organizer for the urban Native American community. As executive director of Children's Defense Fund-Minnesota, she also advocated for the successful 2014 effort to raise Minnesota's minimum wage. Susan Allen (Rosebud) and Republican Steve Green (White Earth Ojibwe) were the only other Natives in the Minnesota State House at that time.

Three other Native women sought election to the Minnesota legislature in November 2016: Mary Kelly Kunesh-Podein (Standing Rock Lakota) and Jamie Becker-Finn (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) ran for state representative seats and Chilah Brown (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) ran for the Minnesota Senate. Kunesh-Podein and Becker-Finn were elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives and took office in January 2017.

In 2017, Flanagan, Allen, Kunesh-Podein and Becker-Finn formed the Minnesota House Native American Caucus to represent issues of both urban and rural Native Americans and their other constituents. During the 2017–2018 legislative session, she served on the House Health and Human Services Reform Committee and its Subcommittee on Childcare Access and Affordability.

2016 Democratic National Convention Flanagan was invited to address the 2016 Democratic National Convention on July 28, 2016. She was the second Native American woman to address the DNC, after Denise Juneau in 2012. After visiting the Minnesota Correctional Facility–Shakopee with Representative Becker-Finn in 2019 and hearing from incarcerated mothers about separation from newborns, Flanagan advocated for legislation that became the 2021 Healthy Start Act, allowing eligible pregnant or postpartum incarcerated people to serve part of their sentences in community alternatives with their infants. She chairs the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness and has worked on the administration's housing-stability initiatives.

2024 Democratic National Convention Flanagan was one of four chairs of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She also addressed the convention on its opening night, introducing herself by her Ojibwe name, Gizhiiwewidamookwe.

2026 U.S. Senate campaign On February 13, 2025, after U.S. Senator Tina Smith announced that she would not seek reelection, Flanagan announced her candidacy for Smith's seat in the 2026 United States Senate election in Minnesota.

On May 30, 2026, Flanagan won the DFL endorsement for the Senate race at the party's state convention in Rochester; Craig had chosen to bypass the endorsement process and compete in the primary. Flanagan was endorsed by Smith, U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, among other elected officials. Sanders endorsed Flanagan in November 2025 and campaigned with her at a July 2026 rally at First Avenue in Minneapolis.

The primary between Flanagan and Craig was widely described as a contest between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party. Immigration and ICE enforcement, U.S. policy toward Israel, the role of corporate and wealthy donors, and outside spending were among the issues that featured prominently in the race.

Political positions Flanagan is a progressive Democrat.

Flanagan supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has described Israel's conduct in the Gaza war as genocide, and said she would have supported reductions in U.S. military aid to Israel and Senate resolutions blocking weapons sales to Israel. Her platform also includes initiatives to increase funding for maternal and mental healthcare services.

Flanagan condemned the killing of Renée Good by an ICE agent amid Trump's mass deportation campaign. She said she supports a "complete and total overhaul" of ICE and criticized her Democratic primary opponent Angie Craig for being "politically expedient" and voting for the Laken Riley Act and a resolution expressing gratitude to ICE agents. In later campaigning, she described her preferred approach as dismantling the agency and rebuilding immigration enforcement, stopping short of using the term "abolish". Later, she sponsored a mandate for tribal consultation in state affairs, The office was established in 2021, and the Walz-Flanagan administration also expanded formal government-to-government consultation between state agencies and Minnesota's tribal nations. Flanagan also supported the redesign of Minnesota's state flag and seal, whose former imagery had long drawn criticism from Native Americans; after the State Emblems Redesign Commission selected new designs in December 2023, she said the change would better represent Minnesotans.

While a legislator, Flanagan authored several bills for employer-provided childcare and state-sponsored childcare assistance.

Personal life

Flanagan has a daughter with her former husband, Tim Hellendrung. Flanagan is Catholic and attends the Church of the Ascension in North Minneapolis.

On January 12, 2018, Flanagan announced on her personal Facebook page that she was in a relationship with the Minnesota Public Radio News host Tom Weber; MPR News announced that day that it was reassigning Weber to no longer cover "the governor's race, the Legislature, potential legislation, public policy involving the executive or legislative branches or any topic related to the November 2018 election." Flanagan married Weber in September 2019.

Flanagan's brother, Ron Golden, died of COVID-19 on March 21, 2020. His death was the second one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee.

Awards In February 2020, the National Congress of American Indians gave Flanagan the Native American Leadership Award for her work raising awareness of Native issues and improving lives of Indigenous people.

Electoral history