# Angie Craig **Angie Craig** is a U.S. Representative from Minnesota (MN-02, since 2019) who **lost the August 11, 2026 DFL primary** for the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring [[Tina Smith]], taking ~39.7% to Lt. Gov. [[Peggy Flanagan]]'s ~58.7%. A former medical-device executive who flipped a suburban Republican-held House district, she ran in the centrist, Buttigieg-aligned lane and conceded on election night, endorsing Flanagan. ## 2026 Senate race — lost primary See [[MN-Sen-2026]] for full race context. - **Primary result (Aug 11, 2026)**: **~39.7%** (~246,157 votes) to Flanagan's ~58.7% (~364,167) — a ~19-point loss. Conceded election night and endorsed Flanagan, who faces Republican nominee [[Michele Tafoya]] in November. - **Why she lost**: her 2025 House vote expanding ICE authority became the primary's central issue once the Trump administration's immigration crackdown reached Minnesota. She eventually expressed regret, but her standing with the DFL's left had collapsed far enough that she skipped the endorsing convention entirely. - **Money did not save her**: ~$3.8M cash on hand in Q1 2026 against Flanagan's ~$811K, and her side vastly outspent Flanagan's through the summer. The electability-and-cash argument lost by 19 points. - **Seat consequence**: Craig gave up MN-02 to run; the district's DFL primary was won by Matt Little. ## Background Built her career in the medical-device industry before winning MN-02 in 2018; one of the first openly LGBTQ women and the first lesbian mother in Congress. A consistent member of the moderate / front-line Democratic bloc. ## Why she matters for the KB Craig's primary loss is the cleanest 2026 verdict on the moderate-electability argument inside a safe-ish DFL seat. The specific mechanism matters for the KB: a single 2025 vote giving ICE more power, cast when accommodation still read as moderate positioning, became disqualifying once [[Second Trump Administration]] enforcement arrived in her state. That is a repeatable pattern to watch in other Democratic primaries — the cost of enforcement-accommodation votes is being repriced in real time. ## Related - [[MN-Sen-2026]] - [[Peggy Flanagan]] - [[Michele Tafoya]] - [[Royce White]] - [[Tina Smith]]