WASHINGTON — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Tuesday endorsed Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan for Senate, praising her as the “progressive fighter” her state needs to take on President Donald Trump and picking her over a fellow member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation.
“Peggy Flanagan is exactly the kind of leader we need in the United States Senate right now,” Omar said in a statement, first obtained by HuffPost. “Peggy has the courage to stand up to Donald Trump, reject corporate PAC money, defend immigrant communities, and fight back against the billionaires and special interests rigging our politics and our economy.”
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“I’m proud to endorse Peggy Flanagan,” she said.
Omar, a prominent progressive in her state and nationally, is the second member of the delegation to back Flanagan in her campaign against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig. Both are vying for the Senate seat held by Democrat Tina Smith, who is not seeking reelection after November.
Smith endorsed Flanagan for her seat in February.
“I’m honored to have Congresswoman Omar’s support,” Flanagan said in a statement. “Ilhan has never backed down from a fight, whether it’s standing up to Donald Trump and ICE, taking on corporate greed, fighting for immigrant families, or demanding dignity and justice for communities too often ignored by those in power.”
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Minnesota’s Senate race has gotten surprisingly testy and has been largely defined by how each candidate has responded to Trump’s immigration crackdowns. Omar’s Minneapolis district was at the center of the administration’s surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers into the state earlier this year, when thousands of federal agents traumatized communities, terrorized immigrant families and fatally shot two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Flanagan, who aligned herself with Gov. Tim Walz (D) amid his condemnations of the ICE surge, has relentlessly attacked Craig over her January 2025 vote for the Laken Riley Act, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain any undocumented immigrants arrested for or charged with theft-related crimes. The law arguably paved the way for federal agents’ aggressive actions in Minnesota.
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Flanagan has also criticized Craig for voting for a June resolution thanking ICE officers who were deployed to Los Angeles at the time.
Craig has tried to back away from her Laken Riley Act vote, going so far as to write a March op-ed saying she now regrets it. She’s called Flanagan’s attacks on her “disgusting,” and pointed out that when Flanagan led the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, the group took a $25,000 donation from a longtime ICE contractor. (Flanagan’s campaign said she didn’t personally solicit money from that contractor and urged DLGA to return it.)
Flanagan is leading in the polls, but Craig’s campaign has a lot more money. Whoever wins the Democratic primary on Aug. 11 will almost certainly go on to become the state’s next U.S. senator. Minnesota hasn’t elected a Republican senator since 2002.
The leading GOP candidate in the race is Michele Tafoya, a retired sportscaster.
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