ICE Ravaged Minnesota, Now It Tests a Senate Primary

Minnesota ICE – In Minnesota’s contentious Democratic U.S. Senate primary, the Trump administration’s monthslong ICE deployment has reshaped loyalties, turned resentment toward the federal government into a defining political force, and left Rep. Angie Craig scrambling to win

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mowlid Mohamed arrived at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party convention with campaign pins on his jacket and a clear plan for what he wanted to see in the U.S. Senate race.

A Somali-American resident of St. Paul. the 42-year-old delegate said he was eager to be a first-time participant at the DFL gathering. late last month. where the state party endorses its slate of candidates. He spent the event pushing for his pick: “Peggy. ” the progressive candidate leading in what has turned into a testy primary against moderate Rep. Angie Craig.

Mohamed’s case for backing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan wasn’t built on abstract ideology. It came down to who showed up as Minnesota’s immigrant communities were being battered.

He pointed to what he called “the ICE occupation” — a monthslong federal push that. he said. traumatized immigrant communities. broke apart families. and fatally shot two American citizens. Renée Good and Alex Pretti. in broad daylight. In Minnesota and nationally, he said, the anger that followed didn’t land on Democrats in the abstract. It landed on Republicans’ claims that immigration enforcement was necessary — and it pushed the DFL base to get further engaged than it expected.

At the convention, delegates made it unmistakably visible. A whopping 57% of the delegates were first-time participants, a sign of a base jolted into action by a moment that feels less like politics and more like a civic wound.

For Mohamed, that shift also flipped the local political environment. He said the reason he was drawn to Flanagan was simple: in the lead-up to and during the endorsement process that began in February. the racial and economic justice nonprofit Faith In Minnesota — with which he is associated — invited both Senate candidates to meet. “Only Flanagan came,” he said. “Angie Craig never showed up.”.

“Peggy did come,” Mohamed said. “We’ve been meeting with her.”

The ICE deployment also changed what voters were willing to forgive. For much of the last year, the Senate race for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith looked like it would settle into a familiar fight between the Democratic left and Democratic centrists. That seat is the first open Senate contest in Minnesota in 20 years.

But the federal action that began this winter scrambled that expectation. Republicans had assumed dissatisfaction with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz would give them leverage statewide. Now. Democrats say the occupation replaced an earlier controversy — a state fraud scandal that Republicans used to justify an immigration crackdown — with something deeper: resentment toward the Trump administration itself.

That resentment has helped Flanagan gain momentum and has made Craig’s argument harder to sell. The congresswoman’s strategy leaned on electability and her record of working with Republicans. an approach that might have played in normal times. Instead, it has collided with a political reality shaped by the images and stories that emerged during the ICE assault.

In January 2025. Craig voted for a Republican bill that gave President Donald Trump new powers to detain immigrants accused of crimes. a vote Craig’s opponents say helped pave the way for the ICE assault on Minnesota. She also voted for a GOP resolution last summer condemning an antisemitic attack that included a line expressing gratitude to ICE “for protecting the homeland.”.

Flanagan has used those votes as proof of Craig’s closeness to the politics of the Trump era. In a comment that reflects how the race itself has become a referendum. Flanagan told HuffPost that Craig’s campaign effort seems like “a great strategy for 2016.” Flanagan said. “Things have changed here. ” adding. “Minnesota was rocked by Operation Metro Surge that she played a hand in by her Laken Riley vote and by praising ICE. That’s for real.”.

Craig disputes that framing. She has tried to distance herself from those immigration-related positions, including by writing a March op-ed saying she regrets voting for the Laken Riley Act.

At the same time. Craig has gone on offense over Flanagan’s ties to CoreCivic. the private prison operator that runs some of ICE’s detention centers. Just Wednesday. Craig’s campaign sent an email re-upping that when Flanagan led the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association in 2024. the group accepted tens of thousands of dollars in donations from CoreCivic.

Craig campaign spokesperson Antoine Givens said in a statement that the Flanagan campaign is either misleading voters or misunderstanding what happened. “The Lt. Governor is either lying or doesn’t know what was going on at the DLGA while she was chair. ” Givens said. “Flanagan had no objection to accepting money from a private prison company operating nearly a dozen ICE detention centers until it became a political liability.”.

Flanagan has brushed off the claims. She has called Craig’s about-face on the Laken Riley Act evidence of a lawmaker who “votes with Republicans and Donald Trump when it’s politically expedient.” And she said she addressed the CoreCivic allegations in February. saying she did not personally solicit money from CoreCivic and has urged the DLGA to return it immediately.

The duel over what loyalty looks like — and what it costs — has become one of the defining tensions of the primary. It’s also showing up in how each campaign talks about the race’s timing.

With the Aug. 11 primary still ahead, Craig and Flanagan are preparing for what both campaigns describe as a brutal fight.

Flanagan told HuffPost, “It’s gonna get ugly. It’s gonna get gross.” Craig said in a separate interview, “I hope they are incredibly giddy right now,” adding, “Because we’re coming, and we’re coming fast.”

The most visible turning point for Flanagan came only a couple of weeks ago, when she stood on stage at the Democratic Party’s state convention and accepted the party’s endorsement for Senate.

At the convention, Flanagan, a community organizer by trade, delivered a speech that went beyond the Senate race itself. She assailed Trump’s war in Iran and his plans for a lavish, taxpayer-funded White House ballroom. She vowed to raise the federal minimum wage, codify access to abortion, and pass Medicare for All.

She also took a swipe at Craig without naming her directly, lumping her in with nameless powerful people in Washington who, Flanagan said, leave regular Americans behind.

“We got here in part because too many Democrats have been weak. ” Flanagan said to cheers from the event’s 1. 200 delegates. “Everywhere I go. people tell me they’re sick and tired of Democrats bending to Republicans and fighting from a defensive crouch. We can’t just be the lesser of two evils. and we will never. ever win by being a pale shadow of our opponents.”.

Craig wasn’t there.

Instead, she was nowhere near her party’s convention. She was at a brewery more than an hour away in Woodbury, hosting a roundtable with a dozen people her campaign described as “disaffected voters.” One of those attendees turned out to be Democratic state legislator, Rep. Ethan Cha.

At the roundtable. Craig told the group she didn’t want her state party’s endorsement anyway and said she had always planned to run directly for the primary. She said her time was better spent meeting directly with the 550. 000 people in the state expected to vote in the primary election. rather than with the 1. 200 Democratic delegates gathered in Rochester.

In the same setting, Craig and Cha traded jabs at convention-goers. Cha said he’d been booed at a state convention when he was there as a surrogate for Craig. “That is so classless,” Cha said.

Craig replied, “Don’t worry. They’re booing everybody.”

There was still a clear sense among some delegates that Craig’s absence carried meaning. even if they understood she was likely headed toward losing the endorsement. “I think it’s disrespectful that she didn’t come. ” said Jeremy Tri. 47. of Mazeppa. a district represented by Republican Rep. Brad Finstad. “Are you chasing Republican votes over us?. What are you doing?”.

Tri, an alternate delegate who said he used to live in Craig’s congressional district, said he once thought she was a good representative. But he said he’s looking for a more progressive senator and that Craig crosses the aisle more than he likes.

“Especially for the Laken Riley Act,” Tri said. “That is a big motivating factor.”

Jean Forman. a 56-year-old nurse who lives in Craig’s congressional district. said her “dealbreaker” issue was Medicare for All — the proposal to eliminate private health insurance and replace it with a single-payer. publicly funded healthcare system. Flanagan supports Medicare for All. Craig has advocated for a public health insurance option, Forman said, which showed Craig as too beholden to Republicans.

“She is a dupe for them,” Forman said. “We can’t get out of our own way. That’s part of it with Medicaid for All, kind of threading that middle of the road. That’s where you get run over. Drive on the left or drive on the right, but driving down the middle is going to be a crash.”

Of the dozen delegates HuffPost spoke to, only Deb Deutsch of St. Louis Park said it didn’t bother her that Craig wasn’t at the convention. Deutsch said she plans to vote for Craig in the August primary. too. arguing that Craig can appeal to Democrats and independents. while Flanagan seems “very nice” but “I don’t think she’s been tested.”.

“Compromise. We need compromise,” Deutsch said. “We can’t go by a litmus test. And that’s how I look at [Flanagan]. Angie doesn’t maybe cross every box, but she crosses enough of the boxes for me.”

Craig’s insistence that she’s the more pragmatic partner — the kind of candidate who can work with Republicans rather than fight from the outside — has been central to her pitch. During her roundtable event. she brought up her legislative record. saying she’s passed 13 bills since getting elected to the House. including two that passed in this session of Congress. led by Republicans.

“If there are issues that our community cares about, I’ll work with them. If they’re attacking our community members, I’ll fight like hell against them,” Craig said. “I can punch with one hand and I can extend with the other. I have no problem with that.”

But Craig is also leaning into a different political story — one where the primary feels like a prelude to a general election against a Republican who, in her account, is already being boosted by outside money.

In multiple roundtable remarks and campaign emails. Craig describes the race as if it’s already being decided in a broader fight for the seat being left open by Sen. Tina Smith. One Tuesday campaign email reads: “Dark money donors are already flooding this race. They’re spending millions to defeat me and hand Minnesota’s Senate seat to Donald Trump’s rubber-stamp candidate Michele Tafoya. ” referring to Tafoya. the former “Monday Night Football” sideline reporter who is the likely GOP Senate candidate.

The email says experts are calling Craig’s race a “toss-up,” and that she is up against a MAGA opponent backed by national Republicans and their massive $300 million war chest.

Even so. the most prominent political forecasters rate the seat as “likely Democratic. ” and Republicans. while pleased with Tafoya’s name recognition and fundraising. do not think the seat is at real risk of turning red in November. Tafoya lost her party’s endorsement to another GOP candidate, former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze.

One longtime Minnesota Democratic operative. who requested anonymity to avoid upsetting either Senate candidate. said they didn’t understand Craig’s trajectory. “She seems to be trying to carve out an electability path. even though the polling that I’ve seen shows that she’s behind. ” the operative said. “In rural parts of the state, too. So there isn’t really an argument for electability when you are not doing as well as the other candidate.”.

Behind the scenes, the DFL endorsement itself carries practical power, not just symbolism. DFL-backed candidates benefit from the party’s operational apparatus — a statewide network of staff and volunteers. That includes phone-banking, door-knocking, flyering, and fundraising.

Craig, now, will essentially be campaigning on her own throughout the state.

Some previous gubernatorial candidates, including Gov. Walz, have won their Democratic primaries without the DFL endorsement, but it “never happened with a Senate candidate,” according to the reporting.

Flanagan is also backed by major fellow Democrats. Sen. Tina Smith. who is retiring. endorsed Flanagan and stood on stage with her when she got the state party’s endorsement. The other Democratic senator. Amy Klobuchar. is running for governor and said she picked up the DFL’s endorsement in that race. Klobuchar told HuffPost she’s backing Flanagan’s campaign because she’s on the ticket with her.

“We always support the ticket,” Klobuchar said. “I’m supporting the ticket as I always do. But I am friends with both … and I respect both of them.”

Still, Craig is trying to prevent her record from becoming the story of her campaign.

She has dismissed polling that shows Flanagan ahead, saying “polling is a snapshot in time” and “times are changing.” Craig has also argued that DFL delegates don’t represent most Democrats, saying, “The Democratic primary voter is a very big tent voter, and it’s across an ideological spectrum.”

She ducked questions about how she will reach Democratic voters without her party’s logistical support. She said, “I know who we’re talking to. I think your idea of what a Democrat is is wrong.”

In her view. Flanagan’s vulnerability is national and domestic at once: Craig says Republicans want to attach Flanagan to Minnesota’s fraud scandal that centers on Feeding Our Future. which in 2021 allegedly exploited a federal child nutrition program to steal $250 million. Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people, and the group’s leader was sentenced to 41 years in prison.

Gov. Walz responded by working with the state Legislature to put new anti-fraud measures in place. The situation roiled his administration and was part of the reason he dropped his reelection bid this year.

Craig argues that Flanagan is culpable by association.

“Primary voters. if they care about winning. do they care that selecting Peggy Flanagan is putting in the person who’s been responsible for the last eight years’ No. 2 in state government?” Craig said. “Republicans are dying to run against Peggy Flanagan because they believe they will be able to attach the fraud issues to her.”.

Flanagan responded by treating Craig’s argument as recycling a repeated line. She said Craig is repeating the same baseless accusations Republicans make about Minnesota Democrats.

Flanagan pointed to a recent attack from Vice President JD Vance on social media that accused Craig of being among Democrats “fighting so hard to hide the data.”

“If she’s going to rely on Republican talking points to do this, she’s going to impact everybody else,” Flanagan said. “How we want to run this race is by building up that room, building up this party. How we win matters.”

She added, “That is one of the biggest differences between the two of us.”

It’s a fight that. in Rochester and beyond. has narrowed into a single question Democrats can feel in their daily lives: after an ICE occupation that left families broken and two American citizens dead in broad daylight. what does it take for a Democratic senator to feel safe to voters — and to look like the party they thought they were joining?.

Minnesota politics DFL convention ICE Peggy Flanagan Angie Craig U.S. Senate primary Operation Metro Surge Renée Good Alex Pretti CoreCivic Laken Riley Act Medicare for All Tina Smith Tim Walz JD Vance Michele Tafoya Adam Schwarze