The tl;dr here is that I am going to vote for Peggy Flanagan and would encourage others to do the same. I actually felt strongly enough about this one that I went to my caucus and got elected as a Senate District delegate and then went and sat through an uncontested Senate District Convention just so I could join a Peggy Flanagan caucus to maybe tip the balance into sending one more Peggy Flanagan delegate to the DFL State Convention. (And the DFL State Convention did in fact endorse Peggy Flanagan; in fact, Angie was trailing in delegates so badly that she just decided not to even go.)

On the DFL Primary Ballot:

Peggy Flanagan
Peter John Murgic
George H Kalberer
Kurt Michael Anderson
Angie Craig
Billy Nord

I’ll start with the people who are absolutely not going to win.

Peter John Murgic

Peter Murgic has no campaign website or any online presence I could find. There’s a FB that might be his but there’s nothing on it that’s publicly visible. I couldn’t find a LinkedIn. His candidate filing page has an e-mail address so I sent him a message asking if he had any views or goals he wished to share, and I got no response.

George H Kalberer

George Kalberer is a perennial candidate who ran last time as well. As was the case last time, all I found about him was a Facebook page he last posted to (publicly, at least) in 2015; it’s full of vitriolic anti-gay and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Kurt Michael Anderson

Kurt Anderson ran for City Council in 2021 on the “Broken Windows Policing 2.0” platform (I’m not unfairly characterizing his positions; that’s what he called it). His campaign site is a PDF and also an unsorted Dropbox you can dig through if you want. He’s an anti-porn, anti-gambling, pro-confiscatory-taxes-on-billionaires oddball.

Billy Nord

Billy Nord has a website with a single paragraph of policy positions: “Home closing costs and downpayment coverage for anyone 18 and over; tax breaks for new parents; free breakfast, lunch and take away dinner for all schoolchildren; free Narcan delivered to everyone; annual vacation credits for all retirees, our Golden Generation; ending the health insurance industry; and stopping grocery corporations from price-gouging.” He did a Reddit AMA where he answered some questions and expanded on other stuff he believes (kinda). He has zero previous political experience, even of the “work on someone else’s campaign” or “volunteer on a county board” variety.

So that’s the also-rans; on to the two real candidates:

Peggy Flanagan
Angie Craig

Peggy is currently the Lieutenant Governor; Angie Craig is the US House representative from the 2nd Congressional District.

I want to start by noting that I will cut a certain amount of slack for swing-district legislative and congressional representatives, when they’re running in their swing district. Angie flipped that seat red to blue, and while she’s often exasperating she’s a hell of a lot better to have in Congress than Jason Lewis (the Republican she replaced). If she were running again in CD 2, well, I don’t write about CD 2, but I wouldn’t be driving down to Northfield to doorknock for a primary challenger, you know? But my standards for statewide office are higher, especially as the state has gotten more blue, and Peggy is quite a bit more progressive than Angie Craig.

Angie Craig voted for the Laken Riley Act. (There was a candidate debate on the local PBS show Almanac and right off (the debate starts 20 minutes in) she got asked about this; her excuse was basically that at the time, it felt like there were other Democrats supporting it, which is a very weird defense given that absolutely no other Minnesota Democrats, including Notorious Moderate Amy Klobuchar, voted in favor.

Other ways in which she’s bad: AIPAC, on their candidate endorsements and fundraising page, enthusiastically notes that Angie “also backed a letter stating that no further conditions should be placed on security assistance to Israel and a resolution rejecting BDS.” In the Almanac debate, Angie claimed that AIPAC had not contributed a penny to her campaign, but that’s because enough Democrats now view AIPAC as utterly toxic that they’ve shifted fundraising strategies. They’re still funneling money to her, which she is still happily accepting.

Angie is also pro-crypto, at least according to the crypto industry. (Here’s their page on Peggy.)

Angie’s campaign has done their best to make hay with a donation that the Democratic Lieutenant Governor’s Association received from CoreCivic, a private prison contractor that also runs ICE detention facilities. This was a $25,000 donation, that was to the DLGA and not to Peggy, which was solicited by someone else before she was chair (though it came in after she became chair), received in 2024. Also, the biggest reason donations like this are a problem is if they work to influence the positions people take in office and on Peggy’s positions page (under Safety) she says she wants to ban private prisons at the federal level. (I looked on Angie’s site to see if she said anything about Israel. Not that I could find!) So basically my feeling on this is that if this was the worst thing Angie’s campaign was able to dig up, Peggy’s fundraising is about as sparkling clean as you can reasonably expect of a viable politician running for US Senate in 2026.

Peggy has endorsements from most of the Democrats I genuinely like (and the DFL) and a set of genuinely progressive policy proposals. She is someone I trust to stand up against fascism.

The biggest legitimate concern around Peggy is the Feeding Our Future scandal, not because it was her fault (it was not) but because it gives the Republicans an angle to attack her on. She pointed out in the Almanac interview that they will go after all the Democrats on this issue — but this is an issue where Angie has a little more distance and is thus a “safer” candidate.

That said, I’m absolutely not convinced that Angie is the safer candidate statewide. The top of the ticket is going to be Amy Klobuchar. Here in my metro-area bubble, I know almost nobody who finds Amy likeable or inspiring; at best, people are resigned to her. If the Senate candidate is similarly the equivalent of a lukewarm cheese pizza (in the sense that “people will probably grudgingly eat it if they’re hungry but no one’s going to be happy to see it on the table”) I think it’s going to be a lot harder to get progressive DFLers to turn out and vote for all the other DFL candidates on the ticket. From a purely pragmatic perspective, I think the DFL will benefit from having someone on the ballot who excites the progressives.

But also, I believe that Peggy will be a better Senator, and I believe that we can elect the better Senator in November. I am going to vote for Peggy Flanagan.

If you’re curious about the Republicans, or if you’re one of the five Republicans who reads my blog, here’s a quick summary of all the evil clowns in the evil clown car:

Adam Schwarze
Bob “Again” Carney Jr.
Ahmad R. (Raafat) Hassan
Patrick Munro
Joyce Lacey
Tom Weiler
Cynthia Gail
Michele Tafoya
Royce White

Adam Schwarze

Adam Schwarze is the endorsed Republican candidate for US Senate despite being so obscure he doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. (Quick tip for any dedicated Republicans: you could go fix that for him. He’s clearly notable enough for a Wikipedia page now.) He’s a former Marine/SEAL (he swapped from Marines to Navy because he wanted to be a SEAL) and his “about” page is almost entirely about his military service; I don’t think he has any prior political experience. His issues page says “TACKLING THE ISSUES THAT MATTER MOST” and then starts off by bashing trans people, which is sure a choice.

Anyway, I’m not sure whether the Republicans decided not to endorse Michele Tafoya because she’s pro-choice, because they hate women, or because they love to lose. Maybe it’s all three?

EDITED TO ADD: Sometime after I wrote this post I started e-mailing the Republicans running on “we have to stop fraud” to ask if they would support the Stop Insider Trading Act and the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act. It occurred to me today to email Adam Schwarze and Michele Tafoya about this, and Adam wrote back immediately. “I would support both of those acts. I hate fraud, and corrupt politicians even more. I’m not in this for the ‘money or power’ and want to go after politicians that are. I have publicly stated I would fight to pass the ‘Stop Insider Trading Act,’ as well as the ‘SAVE America Act.’ Additionally, I have already publicly signed ‘Term Limits Pledge.'” I don’t know how he squares his hatred of corrupt politicians with his support for Donald Trump, but hey, at least he’s currently theoretically committed to the principle that elected officials are not above the law. If Michele Tafoya responds I’ll add her response as well.

Bob “Again” Carney Jr.

Bob is a perennial weirdo who no longer even bothers to maintain a website.

Ahmad R. (Raafat) Hassan

Ahmad Hassan is the dipshit who runs for Senate in Minnesota despite living in Texas. This year he’s switching things up by running in the Republican primary instead of the DFL primary.

Patrick Munro

Patrick’s big thing on his website is “the MAMA movement” (“Make Americans Makers Again”) and given this you’d think that his Facebook page would have a bunch of photos of things he himself has made, but no, it’s a mix of gun-humping and miscellaneous bigotry. He also ran two years ago.

Joyce Lacey

Joyce ran in 2024 and I did a bunch of digging on her at the time, which you can still read. She remains a flake.

Tom Weiler

Tom is another veteran (career Navy, retired early due to Parkinson’s.) His issues page is almost refreshingly boring in the sense that there are no unhinged anti-immigrant rants. The focus on his Facebook page is to convince people that he can totally win the primary even though he’s currently polling at 7% (all he needs is for ALL the undecideds to swing his way.) The focus of his Twitter is to tag other candidates to try to get them to talk to him instead of ignoring him completely. I’m not impressed. Well, I’m slightly impressed that Republicans as basically normal as Tom still exist. Given that Schwarze won the endorsement, I’m going to say that Tom probably had a chance at some point but at this point, he definitely does not.

Cynthia Gail

Cynthia ran in 2020. She has no campaign page but her personal Facebook shares a number of opinions, so I linked to it. She shares a lot of conspiracy theories. She also posted about being a frustrated delegate at the GOP State Convention; if I’m reading between the lines correctly, she was a Michele Tafoya supporter and was really mad at how Michele was treated, so instead of volunteering for Michele she got in the race to run against her. (Although maybe “When I realized how they treated another woman I was hurt for her and disgusted with the voting strategy. […] Did they ghost her because she can’t be bought?” was about Lisa Delmuth, who didn’t get endorsed for Governor.)

Michele Tafoya

Michele Tafoya is a former sportscaster who got into politics in 2022, in the sense of “doing political commentary/consulting and chairing someone’s campaign,” not in the sense of having held an elected office previously. None of the Republicans running have held elected office before. Nor have any of them (so far as I could find) done anything like volunteering on county commissions. The veterans (Adam, Patrick, and Tom) have at least done military service. Michele’s prior political experience seems to be that she chaired Kendall Quall’s gubernatorial campaign in 2022, only to have him explicitly rule her out as a potential running mate on the grounds that she was pro-choice. (That was in 2022, to be clear — in 2026 she wasn’t on the table as a running mate because she’s got her own race going.)

Anyway, despite what strikes me as a pretty thin political resume, she’s widely agreed to be the best and most electable of the Republican Senate candidates. The GOP failed to endorse her at their convention, though, because in addition to being at least somewhat pro-choice (she thinks abortion should be legal up to 12 weeks) she’s been in favor of red flag laws in the past. Regardless, I’m sure she would not let her views stand in the way of doing whatever Trump told her to do.

I was curious who all has endorsed her but her website doesn’t have an endorsements section.

Royce White

Royce White is virulently homophobic, misogynistic, and antisemitic. Naturally, he was the Republican candidate for US Senate in 2024. Per court testimony, he has violently assaulted his ex-wife and his son, and stalked his ex-wife, and she received an order of protection from him in February of this year (good for fifty years.) I fully expect thousands of Minnesotan Republicans to vote for him in August, but I think odds are low he’ll be the candidate this November.

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This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven all (probably) have signed copies. (I also signed copies at Next Chapter, and will be making my way to other bookstores as time allows!)