In Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race, Peggy Flanagan is beating the odds
Most lieutenant governors lose races for higher statewide and federal office. So far, Flanagan is a rare exception.
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By all accounts Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s current lieutenant governor, shouldn’t be winning the state’s Democratic primary for this year’s U.S. Senate race. She’s being outraised by a ratio of more than two-to-one. Her main opponent, Rep. Angie Craig, is a well-known House member with a proven track record of winning tough races. And perhaps most importantly, lieutenant governors have an abysmal track record when running for Senate.
A year ago only half of Minnesotans knew who Flanagan was. Yet according to FiftyPlusOne’s collection of polls, Flanagan leads in every single survey pollsters have published in the race so far. Even polls that have been conducted by Flanagan’s opponent have the statewide number two ahead. Our analysis suggests Flanagan is currently defying historical gravity due to a mix of support from statewide leaders and a strong personal brand. A win is not a foregone conclusion, but she has a strong chance of bucking the historical trend.
Lieutenant governors usually lose races for higher office
Flanagan is trying to pull off a feat that is quite rare in recent political history. Since 2010, 10 lieutenant governors have run for Senate without first being appointed to the office. Only one of those succeeded: Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman. And it’s not just the Senate; lieutenant governors have a pretty lousy success rate running for any office. Since 2010, 74 lieutenant governors have run for statewide or federal office, but they’ve won just 36 percent of their races. And that number is perhaps even optimistic for Flanagan, since it includes lieutenant governors who were initially appointed to their seat or who ascended to become governor and then later ran for a full term. These candidates have a leg up on their colleagues, since they can run as an incumbent (although without the full benefits that typical incumbency offers). When these “ascenders” are excluded, the success rate drops to an even lousier 28 percent.
The biggest problem for lieutenant governors might be the job itself. With few exceptions, they just don’t do much. In most states the lieutenant governor is weaker than the governor and lacks a specific domain through which to channel power — secretaries of state, for example, handle elections and business filings; attorneys general get all of the law. The second-in-command usually handles little more than chairing various blue-ribbon commissions or presiding over their state’s Senate (if they even bother to show up, that is). As a result, there aren’t many opportunities to make headlines or raise their profiles in a substantive way that could help them fundraise or win a primary.
That makes for a pretty hefty tide to swim against when running for another office. But Flanagan is staying afloat with ease so far, performing much better than history and the fundamentals would otherwise suggest. What explains her overperformance?
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Flanagan has the advantage on local matters
To start with, Flanagan has managed to cultivate more support from local Minnesota politicians than Craig, whose prominent endorsements have largely come from out-of-state officials. Flanagan has the backing of the outgoing senator she’s running to replace, Tina Smith, as well as the state attorney general, state auditor, plus 46 current state legislators. Craig, meanwhile, has endorsements from just 18 sitting state legislators and none from any statewide officeholders.
Flanagan’s high level of support from local politicians looks to have boosted her profile in the state, and given her access to a broader and more lucrative fundraising network, though she still trails Craig by a significant amount. At the end of last year, Craig had raised almost $7 million, and ended 2025 with almost $4 million cash on hand. Comparatively, Flanagan had raised just over $3 million, and had about $800,000 cash on hand. But the momentum behind those donations is key. Craig’s quarterly hauls stayed relatively flat throughout the year, while a string of key endorsements last spring boosted Flanagan to more than double her fundraising haul from the first quarter of 20251, and kept up that pace through the rest of the year.
Flanagan also boasts an impressively popular reputation. In the three public polls of the race that have asked whether voters view the candidates favorably or unfavorably, Flanagan had an average favorable rating of 72 percent among Democratic primary voters. Craig, on the other hand, was viewed favorably by an average of 64 percent of Democratic primary voters in the state. That’s still a respectable level of support, but not the kind of numbers you’d hope to be getting from your own party’s voters as a four-term congresswoman — and one who has already spent over $3 million on the race.
Craig has also stumbled on immigration, which polls show is tied with the cost of living as the top issue in the state today. At the beginning of Trump’s second term, Craig voted for the Laken Riley Act, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain unauthorized immigrants who have been accused of certain nonviolent crimes. She also voted for a resolution that expressed “gratitude” to ICE agents, though it also included language that condemned an antisemitic terrorist attack in Colorado.
At the time, some observers thought these votes were politically savvy moves that would counter Republican attacks on Democratic immigration policy made during the 2024 election. But after ICE agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, her vote for any Trump-supported immigration measure became an instant liability among Democratic voters, who were flatly opposed to ICE’s actions in Minneapolis and across the country. In a PPP poll for the Flanagan campaign (conducted Jan. 16 - 17, 2026), around two thirds of primary voters said that Craig’s votes for those bills made them less likely to support her.
Craig has said that she regrets voting for the Laken Riley Act, and introduced articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem following the killing of Renée Good by ICE agents in January. But that hasn’t stopped Flanagan from hammering her on the issue across social media. And in a sign of just how potent immigration enforcement has become in the race, the first thing Sen. Tina Smith mentioned in her video endorsing Flanagan as her successor was ICE’s operations in Minnesota.
Another reason Craig may be struggling to gain traction is that she’s marketing herself as a moderate Democrat, and has drawn little coverage from high-profile endorsers. While Flanagan has rolled out endorsements from progressives like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Craig has emphasized her bipartisan credentials and experience working across the aisle. Yet polling shows that Democrats are looking for their party leaders to fight harder against Republicans. While that’s not an explicitly ideological demand, appeals to bipartisanship and compromise don’t often read as strength. Craig has pivoted recently and wrapped much of her campaign messaging in “fighter” language, but it may be too little too late.
Flanagan certainly isn’t without her own political baggage, though. Last fall, allegations of fraud in the state’s social services system led to Gov. Tim Walz suspending his reelection bid and plenty of criticism by association for Flanagan. She has tried to slough off responsibility and lay the blame at Walz’s feet, but is still facing attacks from the Craig campaign for failing to own up to the fraud that happened partly under her watch.
Win rates vary drastically across cycles
It is possible that 2026 could end up being a better year overall for the nation’s lieutenant governors. Our historical analysis reveals that success rates for lieutenant governors running for other offices have not been constant from cycle to cycle. In fact, win rates rose almost constantly through the 2010s, such that in 2020 and 2022, over half of lieutenant governors running for another office won their races.
But that success rate plummeted in 2024, when only one of six lieutenant governors won their race (now-Gov. Mike Kehoe of Missouri). All that proves is that success comes and goes from cycle to cycle, sometimes in dramatic fashion. And that could mean that 2026 turns out to be a lucky year for the 16 lieutenant governors running for statewide or federal office, including Flanagan.
So far, though, Flanagan seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Up until this point in the cycle, lieutenant governors have struggled to break through in various races across the country. In most polls of Illinois’ Democratic primary for their open Senate seat, Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton is trailing Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi. In New York, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado just dropped his bid for governor amid faltering support. Low polling numbers in Michigan and California have pushed lieutenant governors to switch from running for governor to less crowded races for other statewide office. And just last fall, then-Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears lost her bid for governor in a landslide to Rep. Abigail Spanberger.
Finally, in Wisconsin and Georgia, lieutenant governors could end up having exactly a 50% success rate this year. That’s because each contest features a matchup between two lieutenant governors. In Wisconsin, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes are facing off in the Democratic primary for governor. And in Georgia, Republican Lt. Gov Burt Jones and Democratic former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan are vying to win their respective party primaries for governor as well. That means at least two of the four will end up losing, depending on who makes it through their primary.
So when the dust settles on the 2026 midterms, it’s possible Flanagan ends up being one of the few rarified lieutenant governors to defy history, particularly when it comes to the Senate. We’re still months away from the August primary, more than enough time for Craig’s strong fundraising to turn the tide. But for now, Flanagan is defying the odds and crossing her fingers that 2026 turns out just a little bit better than usual for the nation’s second-in-commands.
Footnotes
Some of that discrepancy can also be attributed to Flanagan launching her campaign partway through the quarter.
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