Trump immigration crackdown looms over Minnesota’s bruising Senate primary
By SCN News Desk
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 9 (SCN NEWS) — President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has become a defining issue in Minnesota’s closely fought Democratic Senate primary, where U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are battling over how Democrats should confront the administration and which candidate is best positioned to keep the open seat in November.
Minnesota Democrats vote Tuesday, Aug. 11, to choose their nominee to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith. Craig and Flanagan lead a six-candidate Democratic field, but their contest has increasingly become a referendum on the party’s direction after months of turmoil surrounding federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota.
The race pits Craig, a four-term congresswoman with a record of winning competitive suburban territory, against Flanagan, a progressive who has served as Minnesota’s lieutenant governor since 2019 and has backing from prominent figures on the Democratic left.
A SurveyUSA poll conducted Aug. 6 showed an exceptionally close contest, with Craig at 42% and Flanagan at 40%, within the poll’s margin of error.
Immigration becomes a fault line
The sharpest disagreement centers on Craig’s vote for the Laken Riley Act, immigration legislation signed by Trump in January 2025 that expanded mandatory detention requirements for certain undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.
Craig was among the Democrats who supported the measure.
That vote has become a major vulnerability in the primary after the Trump administration dramatically expanded immigration enforcement and Minnesota became one of the focal points of the federal crackdown. Flanagan has repeatedly attacked Craig over the vote, arguing Democrats should have anticipated how the administration could use expanded enforcement powers.
Craig has defended the reasoning behind her original vote while acknowledging that she did not anticipate the scale of what followed under the Trump administration.
The issue carries unusual political weight in Minnesota after federal immigration operations generated widespread protests and intense criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The fallout has reshaped state politics and helped energize progressive activists who have rallied behind Flanagan.
Craig makes electability her case
Craig’s argument to Democratic voters is centered heavily on November.
She represents Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District and first won the seat in 2018 after defeating a Republican incumbent. She has since survived competitive elections in territory that has historically been far less reliably Democratic than Minneapolis or St. Paul.
Craig is using that experience to argue she knows how to win voters outside the Democratic base and would give the party a stronger chance of holding Smith’s Senate seat.
That argument has taken on greater importance because Republicans see an open Senate contest as a potential opportunity in a midterm election where control of the chamber is at stake.
Craig has also positioned herself closer to the Democratic center than Flanagan on several issues, even as she has adopted a more confrontational posture toward Trump during the Senate campaign.
Flanagan offers a progressive alternative
Flanagan is making a different argument.
Rather than attempting to appeal primarily to moderate voters, she says Democrats need a clearer break from Trump administration policies and from establishment politics.
She supports progressive priorities including Medicare for All and has called for reductions in U.S. military assistance to Israel. She has also emphasized opposition to corporate political money and taken a harder line against Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.
Flanagan has received support from national progressive figures including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, while retiring Sen. Tina Smith has also endorsed her candidacy.
Her campaign argues that the political lesson from Trump’s return to power is not that Democrats should move toward the center, but that they need to give frustrated voters a more ambitious economic and political alternative.
Michigan result raises the stakes
The Minnesota vote comes only days after progressives scored a major victory in neighboring Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed captured the Democratic Senate nomination.
That result immediately increased national attention on Minnesota.
A Flanagan victory following El-Sayed’s Michigan win would provide further evidence that progressive candidates are gaining strength among Democratic primary voters ahead of November.
A Craig victory would point in the opposite direction, demonstrating that Democratic voters still place substantial weight on candidates who argue that a moderate record and proven appeal in competitive districts offer the safer route to defeating Republicans.
The Minnesota Star Tribune described the contest as the Democrats’ next major ideological test after Michigan, with Craig and Flanagan offering sharply different theories about electability.
Republicans are choosing their nominee too
Republicans will hold their own Senate primary Tuesday to determine who advances to the November general election.
The GOP field includes several candidates seeking the nomination for the open seat.
That means Tuesday’s Democratic winner will not become Minnesota’s senator.
Instead, as with other U.S. primaries, the winner becomes the Democratic nominee and advances to the Nov. 3 general election against the Republican nominee and any other qualifying candidates.
For Democrats, the immediate challenge is emerging from a bitter primary without leaving the party divided.
The immigration debate has made that task considerably harder.
Craig is asking voters to judge her on her broader congressional record and ability to compete statewide.
Flanagan is asking them to treat Craig’s immigration vote as evidence that Democrats need leaders willing to oppose Trump from the outset.
On Tuesday, Minnesota Democratic voters will decide which argument they find more convincing.