WASHINGTON - Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig entered the U.S. Senate race Tuesday, joining a growing field to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith.
Craig’s entry to the Senate race means she won’t seek a fifth term to her U.S. House seat, a decision likely to create a competitive contest to replace her in the Second Congressional District.
Craig’s announcement comes as she’s been raising her profile in recent weeks by holding town halls in the districts of the four Republican members of the Minnesota congressional delegation who have chosen to hold virtual town halls instead.
She joins the Democratic field with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and former state Sen. Melisa López Franzen, who have been campaigning for the last several weeks. She has the most money of the Democrats in the field.
Her congressional campaign reported having more than $1.2 million in the first quarter of this year, money that she will be able to transfer to her Senate bid.
Craig, 53, vowed to fight the “chaos and corruption coming out of Washington” in a campaign launch video. She talked about her rise as an “underdog,” having grown up in a mobile home park raised by a single mother. She worked in the medical device industry before entering politics, first running for her seat in 2016 when she lost to Jason Lewis. She defeated Lewis in 2018 and has held the seat ever since.
She took a swipe at “unelected” billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, who she said is “trampling our rights and freedoms as he profits for personal gains.” Craig also accused the Republican Party of “rolling over and letting it all happen.”
“We’ve gotta break through the chaos and take them head on,” Craig, Minnesota’s first openly gay member of Congress, said in the video. “I know what it’s like to be knocked down and counted out, to be the underdog.”
