A Brief History of Minnesota Lieutenant Governors Running for US Senate
Only two sitting or former Lieutenant Governors have served in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota – none directly elected from the office
Another unexpected Democratic U.S. Senate seat in a battleground state opened up for the 2026 cycle this week when Minnesota DFLer Tina Smith announced she would not seek a third term next year.
On that same day two-term Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan announced that she would seek the DFL nomination for the seat next year.
Smith herself was completing her third year as Lieutenant Governor under Mark Dayton when he appointed her to Al Franken’s vacant seat.
Flanagan, however, is seeking to become the first Minnesotan to win election to the nation’s upper legislative chamber while serving as the state’s Lieutenant Governor.
In fact, the footprint of sitting or ex-Lieutenant Governors running for the U.S. Senate is rather thin across the decades in the Gopher State.
Prior to the direct election of U.S. Senators, only three Minnesotans who had served as the state’s Lieutenant Governor received votes for the office.
Former Republican Lieutenant Governor Ignatius Donnelly (1860-1863) received one vote out of 60 cast in the January 1871 special U.S. Senate election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Republican Daniel Norton. Donnelly had most recently attempted to win back his 2nd CD seat as a Democrat in 1870 – a seat he previously held for three terms. The 1871 special was won by Republican Rochester attorney Ozora Stearns.
Over the next quarter-century, Donnelly served multiple stints in the state legislature and became a world-renowned author.
In January 1895, he was the U.S. Senate nominee of the People’s Party and received 13 out of 167 votes in a contest won by Republican Governor Knute Nelson.
In January 1877, sitting GOP Lieutenant Governor James Wakefield (1876-1880) won three out of 142 votes in an election won by Republican incumbent William Windom.
In February 1883, prior to being sworn in for his first of two terms as a U.S. Representative, Wakefield received one out of 137 votes in a contest won by Republican Dwight Sabin.
In January 1907, former Republican Lieutenant Governor Frank Day won a single vote out of 175 as Knute Nelson was reelected to a third term.
Over the next 30 years, three more former Lieutenant Governors would launch a total of four failed bids for the U.S. Senate:
- 1923: Republican J.A.A. Burnquist (1913-1915) placed sixth out of nine candidates in the GOP primary with 4.9 percent in a special election to the fill the seat after Knute Nelson’s death. Burnquist had most recently served as Governor.
- 1928: Burnquist ran for the U.S. Senate again, but placed second out of three candidates in the Republican primary, 11.8 points behind former St. Paul Mayor Arthur Nelson. Burnquist would eventually win eight terms as Attorney General and become one of just a few Minnesotans elected to three different statewide offices.
- 1942: Farmer-Laborite Henry Arens (1931-1933) finished third out of four candidates in his party’s primary with 15.4 percent. Former Governor and U.S. Senator Elmer Benson was nominated.
- 1958: Former Farmer-Labor Lieutenant Governor Hjalmar Petersen (1935-1936) ran a distant second to U.S. Representative Eugene McCarthy in the DFL primary with 20.6 percent. Petersen was also a former Governor (1936-1937) and sitting Railroad and Warehouse Commissioner (1937-1943, 1955-1967).
The only Minnesotan to serve as Lieutenant Governor to enter the U.S. Senate via the ballot box was Republican Governor Edward Thye in 1946. Thye briefly served as Lieutenant Governor in 1943 and was elevated to the office of Governor after Harold Stassen resigned to join the U.S. Navy during World War II.
Thye easily defeated four-term incumbent Henrik Shipstead for the GOP nomination in July and beat St. Olaf College professor and DFL nominee Theodore Jorgenson by nearly 20 points that November.
The only other Lieutenant Governor to run for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota history was Independent-Republican Joanell Dyrstad (1991-1995) in 1994.
Dyrstad placed second out of four candidates with 35.2 percent of the vote – 23 points behind U.S. Representative Rod Grams.
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– Arguably the most glaring shortcoming of the lieutenant governor elected as part of a team (i.e. both general and primary elections) – or selected shortly after the standalone gubernatorial primary – is that such person does not have a chance to demonstrate electoral appeal on her own (in a “shotgun wedding” state such as PA at least the lieutenant governor aspirant has a chance to prove his mettle in the standalone primary election, e.g. Fetterman in 2018). Having noted that, it is mildly surprising that this state – unlike, say, VA – has had rather few lieutenant governors make successful bids for more prominent offices even before the ‘overhaul’ of the 1970s.
– Interestingly, the 2026 election will mark the very first occasion that this seat will have an open contest ensued by the *retirement* of the elected incumbent since the end of the Second World War. On several times appointees had been seeking to retain his or her seat – and the 2002 election abruptly became one in the wake of the passing of Senator Wellstone.
(Unrelated) As expected former US Senate R floor leader McConnell (KY) announced he would stand down altogether – not just as head of party caucus – after the 2026 election. With the governor post opening up due to term limits also, the state will have open- seat contests for both in the *same cycle* – the first since the 1967-1968 cycle.
In the aforementioned ’67-’68 period the general pushback against the LBJ administration resulted in the Republicans winning both. With the Musk & Trump regime in charge, the Democrats stand a decent chance to win both – the governor post arguably more so than the Senate seat.