Peggy Flanagan for U.S. Senate: A People-Powered Movement for Minnesota

Fighting for a fair economy, affordable health care, strong public schools, workers’ rights, tribal communities, and a democracy that works for Minnesotans.

Peggy Flanagan is Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor and the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in 2026. On August 11, 2026, she won the Minnesota Democratic Senate primary, earning her party's nomination for the general election.

Flanagan's campaign is built around the belief that working people deserve more than simply getting by. Families should be able to afford housing, health care, child care, food, education, and retirement—and one good job should be enough to provide stability.

Her campaign describes itself as people-powered and says it does not accept corporate PAC money. The campaign's central message is that Washington should work for Minnesotans, not billionaires, powerful corporations, lobbyists, or special interests.

Peggy Flanagan is running for U.S. Senate to build a fair economy, protect fundamental rights, defend democracy, and make government work for everyday Minnesotans.

Table of Contents

• Who Is Peggy Flanagan?
• The Peggy Flanagan Movement
• Core Campaign Priorities
• Affordable Health Care and Medicare for All
• A Fair Economy for Working Families
• Affordable Housing and Homelessness
• Education and Universal Child Care
• Climate, Clean Energy, and Clean Water
• Democracy, Ethics, and Ending Corruption
• Tribal Communities and Sovereignty
• How to Get Involved
• Donate to Peggy Flanagan
• Minnesota Voter Resources
• Flanagan vs. Tafoya: Where the Candidates Differ
• Frequently Asked Questions

1. Who Is Peggy Flanagan?

Peggy Flanagan is Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor, a former Minnesota state representative, former Minneapolis School Board member, organizer, and Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.

Flanagan has served as Lieutenant Governor since 2019. Her official campaign biography describes a public-service career focused on education, child care, health care, paid family and medical leave, housing, labor rights, and reproductive freedom.

She previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives and was a member of the Minneapolis School Board. She also served as executive director of the Children's Defense Fund–Minnesota and worked as a trainer with Wellstone Action, helping grassroots activists build organizing skills in their communities.

Flanagan is Ojibwe and an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation. If elected, her campaign says she would become the first Native American woman to serve in the United States Senate.

• Official campaign website: Peggy Flanagan for Minnesota
• Campaign priorities: Peggy Flanagan's Priorities
• Volunteer with the campaign: Volunteer for Peggy Flanagan
• Federal campaign record: FEC: Peggy Flanagan for Minnesota

2. The Peggy Flanagan Movement

The Peggy Flanagan campaign presents itself as a people-powered movement focused on building a fairer economy and restoring trust in government.

The movement centers working families, union members, small-business owners, farmers, parents, students, seniors, tribal communities, rural communities, and people who believe government should help families live with dignity rather than make life harder.

The campaign argues that powerful corporations and wealthy interests have too much influence in Washington. Its response is a platform that combines economic fairness, universal health care, labor rights, public education, climate action, civil rights, campaign-finance reform, and democratic accountability.

Flanagan's campaign states that it does not take corporate PAC money and asks supporters to build the campaign through grassroots participation and individual contributions.

3. Core Campaign Priorities

Read Peggy Flanagan's Full Official Campaign Priorities

4. Affordable Health Care and Medicare for All

Flanagan's campaign argues that health care is a human right. Her platform supports Medicare for All, with the stated goal of ensuring that people can access the care they need without being blocked by high costs, insurance denials, or confusing administrative rules.

Her platform also calls for expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage to include vision, dental, and hearing care; lowering prescription-drug prices through negotiation; protecting rural hospitals and clinics; improving mental-health access; supporting maternal health; and reducing barriers created by prior-authorization rules.

A Medicare for All system would require federal legislation, congressional approval, funding decisions, and a transition plan for patients, providers, employers, and insurers. The campaign's core position is that medical decisions should be made by patients and health-care providers—not by insurance-company processes or algorithms.

• Peggy Flanagan's Official Health Care Priorities
• HealthCare.gov
• Medicare.gov
• Medicaid.gov
• Minnesota Health Care Programs

5. A Fair Economy for Working Families

Flanagan's campaign supports an economy where one good job is enough to afford a home, pay bills, care for a family, save for the future, and retire with dignity.

Her platform supports a $17 federal minimum wage indexed to inflation, national paid family and medical leave, stronger worker protections, expanded child tax credits for working and middle-class families, protection and expansion of Social Security, food-assistance programs, and investment in small businesses.

The campaign also supports making it easier for workers to organize, protecting the right to collective bargaining, investing in registered apprenticeships, and ensuring that clean-energy and infrastructure investment creates high-quality union jobs.

• Raise wages: Support a federal minimum wage of at least $17 per hour, adjusted for inflation.
• Protect paid leave: Ensure workers can care for a child, spouse, parent, or themselves without losing a paycheck.
• Support union rights: Defend the right to organize, bargain collectively, and negotiate for safe workplaces and fair compensation.
• Help small businesses compete: Improve access to programs and financing that help small businesses compete with large corporations.
• Strengthen retirement security: Protect Social Security and make sure high-income earners contribute fairly.
• Protect food assistance: Defend SNAP, WIC, Meals on Wheels, and other programs that help families and seniors access food.

• U.S. Department of Labor
• National Labor Relations Board
• Social Security Administration
• USDA SNAP Information

6. Affordable Housing and Homelessness

Housing stability is a major part of Flanagan's agenda. Her campaign supports increasing the supply of affordable housing, helping first-time homebuyers, protecting renters, addressing homelessness, and limiting the ability of large corporate landlords and hedge funds to buy single-family homes.

The campaign also supports removing lead from homes and water systems, improving energy efficiency, expanding supportive housing services, and making homeownership more achievable for Minnesotans.

Her platform argues that stable housing gives people the foundation they need to stay healthy, build financial security, support their children, and participate fully in their communities.

• Peggy Flanagan's Official Housing Priorities
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Minnesota Housing Finance Agency
• USA.gov Housing Assistance
• 211 Housing, Food, and Community Assistance

7. Education and Universal Child Care

Flanagan's education platform covers the entire path from early childhood through career training. It includes universal child care, expanded Head Start, publicly financed universal pre-K, strong public schools, special-education funding, school meals, community-school services, career education, apprenticeships, and student-loan support.

Her background includes service on the Minneapolis School Board and leadership with the Children's Defense Fund–Minnesota. As lieutenant governor, her campaign cites Minnesota investments in paid family and medical leave, public education, universal school meals, and other family-centered policies.

The campaign argues that a child's ZIP code should not determine access to a high-quality education, and that families should not have to sacrifice financial stability to access child care or early learning.

• Peggy Flanagan's Education and Child Care Priorities
• U.S. Department of Education
• ChildCare.gov
• Federal Student Aid
• Minnesota Department of Education

8. Climate, Clean Energy, and Clean Water

Flanagan's campaign supports action on climate change, renewable energy, environmental protection, and climate resilience. Her platform emphasizes building a clean-energy economy that creates union jobs while protecting Minnesota's water, natural resources, communities, and future generations.

The campaign supports investment in wind and solar energy, biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel, green manufacturing, energy infrastructure, regenerative agricultural practices, and environmental accountability for companies that violate standards designed to protect people and natural resources.

For Minnesota farmers, the platform also addresses stable export markets, a comprehensive Farm Bill, right-to-repair protections, agricultural innovation, mental-health support, and infrastructure investments that support rural communities.

• Peggy Flanagan's Climate and Agriculture Priorities
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
• Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
• U.S. Department of Agriculture

9. Democracy, Ethics, and Ending Corruption

Flanagan's campaign argues that Washington cannot work for ordinary people if wealthy donors, corporate PACs, dark-money groups, and special interests have outsized political power.

Her campaign supports stronger campaign-finance disclosure, limits on corporate political influence, a ban on stock trading by federal elected officials, lobbying restrictions, ethics reforms, protection of free and fair elections, and efforts to reverse the effects of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

The campaign also supports voting-rights protections, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and argues that all eligible voters should be able to participate without unnecessary barriers.

• Peggy Flanagan's Democracy and Ethics Priorities
• Federal Election Commission
• FEC Campaign Finance Data
• OpenSecrets
• Common Cause

10. Tribal Communities and Sovereignty

As an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, Flanagan's campaign highlights federal obligations to tribal nations and the importance of government-to-government relationships between tribal governments, states, and the federal government.

Her platform supports honoring treaty and trust responsibilities, investing in tribal communities, protecting tribal sovereignty, strengthening the Indian Health Service, supporting tribal colleges and universities, and ensuring meaningful consultation with tribal nations on policies that affect them.

The campaign also emphasizes that tribal communities should have a direct voice in federal decision-making, resource protection, health care, education, economic opportunity, and public safety.

• Peggy Flanagan's Tribal Communities Priorities
• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Indian Health Service
• White Earth Nation

11. How to Get Involved

You do not need political experience to participate. Campaigns and community movements depend on volunteers, organizers, workers, students, parents, seniors, writers, designers, and people who care about their state and country.

Volunteer

• Sign up through the official Peggy Flanagan campaign website.
• Help with canvassing, phone banking, text banking, voter registration, community events, or outreach.
• Share official campaign information with friends, family, and neighbors.
• Attend campaign events, town halls, community meetings, or local candidate forums.
• Encourage eligible Minnesotans to register and vote.

Volunteer With Peggy Flanagan's Campaign

Stay Informed

• Read the official campaign platform before sharing political claims online.
• Check dates and sources before reposting election information.
• Use official voter information from the Minnesota Secretary of State.
• Learn about candidates, ballot questions, and local races in your community.
• Talk with neighbors respectfully and focus on practical issues affecting Minnesota families.

12. Donate Directly to Peggy Flanagan's Campaign

Supporters can contribute through Peggy Flanagan's official campaign website. The campaign website includes a donation form and states that it does not accept corporate PAC money.

Donate to Peggy Flanagan

Official campaign and donation page: https://peggyflanagan.com/

The campaign's official website has its own "Donate to Peggy's campaign" form. Before contributing, review the eligibility rules, contribution limits, and required campaign-finance disclosures on the official donation page. Note: as with most active campaigns, other ActBlue pages referencing Peggy Flanagan may be run by independent PACs or allied groups rather than her campaign committee directly. When in doubt, donate through her official site linked above.

For campaign information, volunteer opportunities, and the official platform, visit:

• Peggy Flanagan for Minnesota — Official Campaign Website
• Volunteer With the Campaign
• Peggy Flanagan's Full Campaign Priorities
• Federal Election Commission Campaign Record

13. Minnesota Voter and Civic Resources

• Minnesota election information: Minnesota Secretary of State — Elections and Voting
• Register to vote: Minnesota Voter Registration
• Check registration and polling place: Minnesota Polling Place Finder
• Absentee and mail voting: Minnesota Absentee Voting Information
• Federal voter information: USA.gov Voting Resources
• Election reminders: Vote.org
• Track federal legislation: Congress.gov
• Campaign-finance data: Federal Election Commission Campaign Finance Data

14. Flanagan vs. Tafoya: Where the Candidates Differ

National Republicans view this race as their best chance to win a Minnesota statewide election in 20 years. Below is a neutral, issue-by-issue summary based on reporting from the Star Tribune, MinnPost, Minnesota Reformer, ESPN, Fox 9, and Ballotpedia.

A Notably Moderate Republican Nominee

Tafoya's primary win is itself a story: the state GOP convention had endorsed the more conservative Adam Schwarze in May 2026, but Tafoya's name recognition and fundraising carried her to roughly 52% of the primary vote. She has drawn some criticism from the party's right flank for describing herself as a "pro-choice conservative with libertarian leanings" — a position more moderate than many national Republican figures. Notably, President Trump did not endorse a candidate in the Minnesota GOP primary, though Tafoya had support from national party infrastructure.

An Expensive, Bitter Democratic Primary

Flanagan's primary win over Rep. Angie Craig was hard-fought and expensive by Minnesota standards, with both campaigns combined spending roughly $15 million. Reporting from the Minnesota Reformer and MinnPost describes Flanagan running to the left of Craig on health care and corporate money while facing sustained Republican attacks over her proximity, as Lieutenant Governor, to a state fraud scandal in Minnesota's social-service programs — an issue Republicans are expected to keep raising through November.

Note: This comparison reflects reported positions as of late August 2026. Check each campaign's official site for the most current platform language before voting.

15. Frequently Asked Questions

The answers below were researched from multiple independent news sources (Star Tribune, MinnPost, Minnesota Reformer, ESPN, Fox 9, AP/CBS News), the nonpartisan Ballotpedia, and the official campaign site, cross-checked against one another. Facts current as of late August 2026 — verify anything time-sensitive against the official sources linked throughout this guide before relying on it.

Build a Minnesota That Works for Everyone

Peggy Flanagan's campaign is rooted in the belief that Minnesotans deserve affordable health care, good jobs, stable housing, strong public schools, clean water, protected rights, and a government that listens to people.

Whether your top concern is wages, child care, health care, housing, farming, climate, education, retirement, tribal sovereignty, civil rights, or democracy reform, participation matters.

Learn about the issues. Verify information. Volunteer. Vote. Encourage others to get involved.

Progress happens when people organize, participate, and insist that government work for everyone.