Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan routed a moderate Democratic rival in the state's Senate primary and used her victory speech to vow she would "rip ICE apart", handing Republicans a general-election opponent they believe they can beat.
Flanagan defeated Rep. Angie Craig on Tuesday night by a commanding margin, capturing roughly 59% of the vote to Craig's 40%, the Washington Examiner reported with 80% of expected ballots counted. The result defied pre-election surveys that had shown Craig leading by as much as five points and overcame a fundraising gap that should have buried an insurgent campaign.
The win marks the second consecutive week that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party toppled a Schumer-backed moderate in a Senate primary. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed pulled off a narrow upset over Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan's primary the week before. Together, the results have reshuffled the Senate map and forced Democratic leadership to defend seats in two states that were supposed to be safe.
Flanagan wasted no time signaling where she intends to take the race. In her Tuesday-night remarks, she turned directly to immigration enforcement, Fox News Digital reported.
"Now let's talk about Donald Trump's out of control ICE force. We need to rip ICE apart and stop them from terrorizing our communities. And I know this. I know that we can fix our broken immigration system, secure the border, and create a real pathway to citizenship that aligns with our values."
The call to dismantle a federal law-enforcement agency is not a fringe aside for Flanagan. It is consistent with a campaign built on opposing the Laken Riley Act, backing Medicare for All, and pushing to end military aid to Israel. She described Craig's vote for the Laken Riley Act, Craig was the only Minnesota Democrat to support it, as a disqualifying betrayal.
Flanagan framed that vote in stark terms during the campaign. "Voting three days into the second Trump administration for Donald Trump's immigration bill that allowed him to terrorize our communities, the loss of life, the economic impact, the trauma, it's horrific," she said, Just The News reported.
Flanagan also pointed to two immigration enforcement-related shootings earlier this year in Minnesota, the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, as justification for her anti-ICE stance. The article did not detail the specific circumstances of those incidents.
Craig, for her part, later said she regretted the Laken Riley Act vote but defended it as reflecting the realities of representing a competitive district. That concession did not save her candidacy.
The financial mismatch made Flanagan's blowout all the more striking. Craig raised nearly $13 million this cycle and had $3.6 million cash on hand heading into the primary, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Flanagan raised just under $7 million and entered the final stretch with only $1.1 million in the bank.
Craig had the institutional muscle to match. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg all lined up behind her, the New York Post reported. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed Craig as well.
Flanagan's coalition came from the party's left flank. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, retiring Sen. Tina Smith, and Rep. Ilhan Omar all endorsed her. Sanders appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" the Sunday before the primary to make the case directly.
"Peggy Flanagan is about bringing about real change, standing up to the big money interests. There is a reason why the super PACs and the billionaires are flooding Minnesota with all kinds of money. Same thing as Michigan."
Sanders framed both the Minnesota and Michigan primaries as a single front in a battle between grassroots progressives and corporate-aligned Democrats. The NRSC saw the same pattern, and a different opportunity.
The broader push from the Democratic Socialists of America wing to abolish borders and dismantle federal agencies is no longer confined to House backbenchers. It is now driving Senate nominees in purple states.
National Republicans moved quickly to frame Flanagan as a gift to their Senate map. NRSC spokesperson Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital that the progressive takeover has left Schumer's caucus weakened.
"Morale among Chuck Schumer's establishment is at an all-time low, and Bernie Sanders' socialist flank is filling the gap with candidates like Peggy Flanagan and Abdul El-Sayed."
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who chairs the NRSC, told CNN that Minnesota now ranks among his most promising pickup targets. Republican nominee Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter, is within a point of Flanagan in current surveys, Scott said.
"What we know without question is, she is within a point of the lieutenant governor right now. So if we can continue to let her show the contrast between the two candidates, I think Michele Tafoya's the kind of Republican that can win."
Scott did not cite the specific poll behind that claim. But the broader argument, that a candidate who campaigns on dismantling ICE will struggle in a general election, does not require a pollster to understand. Minnesota has not elected a Republican senator since 2002. Flanagan's platform gives Tafoya the clearest ideological contrast the state GOP has had in a generation.
An unnamed GOP operative put it more bluntly to Fox News Digital: "Minnesota and Michigan being in play was not on Chuck Schumer's bingo card this cycle. It remains to be seen which battleground(s) Democrats will have to pull resources from to drag socialists like Peggy Flanagan and Abdul El-Sayed across the finish line in November."
That resource question matters. Tafoya already leads Flanagan in cash on hand, $1.3 million to $1 million, heading into the general election, according to Just The News. Flanagan burned through her war chest to win a primary she was expected to lose.
Craig tried to make electability the centerpiece of her closing argument. During a July 27 debate, she warned that Republicans were "dying to run against" Flanagan because of the lieutenant governor's vulnerability on a fraud scandal tied to her administration, Breitbart reported.
Flanagan's response was to pivot. She described the fraud issue as a Republican distraction and redirected attention to Craig's Laken Riley Act vote. "She was the only Minnesota Democrat to vote for Donald Trump's immigration bill. She stood by that vote for 14 months," Flanagan said.
On the fraud scandal itself, Flanagan offered a broader deflection: "Republicans are running against every Democrat in this race on that issue, because they are distracting from the fact that we have one of the most corrupt presidents in our nation's history."
The strategy worked in the primary. Whether it holds in a general election against a Republican opponent who can press both the fraud question and the "rip ICE apart" rhetoric remains the central unknown.
Former Gov. Tim Walz, whose administration Flanagan served as lieutenant governor, has not weighed in on the Senate race. His own prospects for a gubernatorial reelection bid were reportedly damaged by the same fraud scandal. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota's senior Democrat who is now running for governor, has also stayed on the sidelines.
That silence is notable. When a party's sitting governor and senior senator both decline to endorse their own nominee, it suggests the establishment understands the risk, even if primary voters did not.
The Democratic Party's reluctance to confront its own progressive wing has been a recurring theme since 2020. Flanagan's nomination is the latest and most consequential example in the current cycle.
And the pattern extends beyond Minnesota. House Minority Leader Jeffries himself has refused to rule out a vote to abolish ICE, even while trying to distance the party from that position publicly. The gap between what Democratic leaders say on camera and what their nominees campaign on keeps widening.
Even figures within the party have acknowledged the electoral danger. Bill Clinton recently conceded that Republican efforts to brand Democrats as radical will land hard in 2026, a warning that Flanagan's rhetoric makes considerably easier to prove.
Flanagan now carries a set of positions into the general election that read like a Republican opposition researcher's wish list: abolish ICE, end aid to Israel, implement single-payer health care, and dismiss a state fraud scandal as a partisan distraction. She won her primary by nearly twenty points running on that platform.
Tafoya, a political newcomer with name recognition from her broadcasting career, will have to convert that contrast into votes in a state that leans blue. Scott and the NRSC clearly believe she can.
For Schumer, the math just got harder. Two Senate seats that should have been locks are now contested, and both nominees ran to his left on the issues, immigration, spending, foreign policy, where Democrats are most exposed nationally. The establishment candidates had the money, the endorsements, and the polling leads. They lost anyway.
Democratic primary voters chose the candidates they wanted. Now the rest of Minnesota gets a say, and "rip ICE apart" will sound different in November than it did on Tuesday night.
