Peggy Flanagan Defeats Angie Craig In Minnesota Democratic Senate Primary

protect trans children. Not the price of groceries in Duluth, not the farm economy, not crime in the Twin Cities. That's the banner she ran under and apparently the one that worked.

Angie Craig is no moderate firebrand, but she's the kind of Democrat who at least pretends to care about swing voters in a state Trump came close to flipping twice. Flanagan winning by leaning into gender ideology as the centerpiece issue tells you something about where the actual energy in that party sits right now. It's not with the voters worried about their mortgage or their kid's math scores. It's with an activist base that treats every primary as a purity test.

Minnesota Democrats can nominate whoever excites their base most. That's their call. But it's worth saying plainly: this is not a winning message outside the Minneapolis city limits, and Republicans should be thrilled to run against it in November. Voters have shown again and again they want leaders talking about their paychecks and their safety, not a culture war fight most families never asked to be part of.

The bigger story here is a Democratic Party that keeps mistaking activist enthusiasm for electoral strength. Flanagan may have won the primary. Whether that primary win translates into a general election win in a state with plenty of working-class and rural voters is a very different question, and one Democrats seem determined not to ask themselves.