Will a Woman Succeed Tina Smith in the US Senate?
Two women have never competed for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in state history
Earlier this week a second DFL candidate entered Minnesota’s open U.S. Senate race following Tina Smith’s decision to retire at the end of the cycle.
Former three-term State Senator Melisa López Franzen joins Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan (pictured) as the DFL seeks to win their ninth consecutive U.S. Senate election in the state.
On the Republican side, former NBA player and 2024 nominee Royce White and former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze have jumped into the race.
Several other notable political figures and officeholders – mostly women – have also publicly expressed interest in running for the open seat including DFL U.S. Representatives Angie Craig and Ilhan Omar, Republican State Senator Julia Coleman (daughter-in-law of former Senator Norm Coleman), broadcaster Michele Tafoya, and GOP State Representative Kristin Robbins.
It would not be surprising if a woman was nominated by the DFL to replace Smith – women have received eight of the party’s last 15 nominations for the office over the last 40+ years:
- 1984: Secretary of State Joan Anderson Growe
- 1994: Former St. Paul State Representative Ann Wynia
- 2006, 2012, 2018, 2024: Amy Klobuchar
- 2018 (special), 2020: Tina Smith
Anna Olesen, a homemaker from Cloquet, was also nominated by the Democratic Party in 1922. Olesen was the first woman candidate and nominee for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota history.
In fact, only five Democratic women have appeared on the primary ballot and failed to win their party’s nomination:
- 1978 (special): St. Paul real estate agent and waitress Sharon Anderson (3.0 percent, third of four candidates)
- 2000: Minneapolis construction firm executive Rebecca Yanisch (14.6 percent, fourth of eight)
- 2008: St. Paul attorney Priscilla Lord Faris (29.7 percent, second of seven)
- 2014: Duluth teacher Sandra Henningsgard (5.5 percent, second of two)
- 2020: Transgender Eagan data analyst Paula Overby (5.3 percent, second of five)
But while women have captured nine nominations on the Democratic side of the ballot, only one of 13 women have accomplished this feat for the GOP: Stillwater State Senator Karin Housley in 2018’s special primary.
Just two of the 12 remaining women GOP candidates have received double-digit support at the primary: Margaret Schall in 1936 and Joanell Dyrstad in 1994.
Schall was the widow of Progressive-turned-Republican U.S. Representative (1915-1925) and U.S. Senator (1925-1935) Thomas Schall, who was killed after being struck by an automobile in Washington, D.C. in December 1935. Schall lost the 1936 Republican primary by 41.1 points to U.S. Representative (1933-1937) and former Governor (1925-1931) Theodore Christianson, winning 29.5 percent in the head-to-head contest.
In 1994, Dyrstad – former Red Wing Mayor (1985-1991) and sitting Lieutenant Governor (1991-1995) – lost the GOP nomination to U.S. Representative Rod Grams by 23.0 points with 35.2 percent of the primary vote.
The other 10 women to lose the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate are:
- 1942 (special): Winona homemaker Florence Wagner (8.3 percent, fifth out of seven candidates)
- 1948: St. Paul homemaker Lenore Irene Bussmann (5.3 percent, third of three)
- 1958: Brooklyn Center homemaker Sigrid Schmidt (2.6 percent, third of three)
- 1976: Lake Saint Croix Beach nurse Bea Mooney (6.5 percent, fifth of five)
- 1978 (special): Burnsville accountant Adell Campbell (4.1 percent, fifth of five)
- 1982: St. Paul writer and retired school teacher Mary Jane Rachner (6.6 percent, second of two)
- 1988: Perennial St. Paul candidate Sharon Anderson (4.5 percent, second of three)
- 2018: Former Shoreview educator and nurse practitioner Rae Hart Anderson (8.9 percent, third of four)
- 2020: Albert Lea art teacher Cynthia Gail (7.2 percent, third of five)
- 2024: Glencoe natural foods co-op owner Alycia Gruenhagen (7.7 percent, fourth of eight)
It should be noted that one woman competed for the Farmer-Labor nomination prior to the DFL merger: in 1942, Norma Lundeen – widow of former U.S. Senator Ernest Lundeen – received 21.5 percent of the vote, good for second place out of four candidates and 37.6 points behind former U.S. Senator (1935-1936) and Governor (1937-1939) Elmer Benson.
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– Muriel Himphrey – widow of nearly successful 1968 Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Horatio – might well have been added to the list of failed DFL female Senate aspirants on the 1978 primary ballot, even as an ‘incumbent’ Senator.
– “Homemaker”…The quaint term should not be confused with home *builder*. As well, they were the real “trad wives”, not the pretend kind, like that allegedly “fantastically attractive” US senator from “‘Bama” (referring to her cosplaying a homemaker during the Republican Response to a President Biden address in either ’24 or ’23; sigh).
– While she clearly will not pre-empt intraparty opposition, nearly-ascended Governor Flanagan would have to be considered to have the inside track to win the nomination, with her statewide familiarity and ideological position, namely to the left of Representative Craig and right of Representative Omar (hyperpartisan and even centrist/pragmatic Republicans would practically salivate at the notion of the controversial “Squad” member eclipsing even Governor Walz as the most prominent face of the party as the nominee).
Indeed – ‘homemaker’ = the term of art per contemporary media and U.S. Census records (though sometimes ‘keeping house’ was utilized in the latter). While Omar has an outsized reputation per the rest of potential field, one suspects that the line between the policy preferences of Flanagan and Omar is much narrower than that between Flanagan and Craig. Thus a hypothetical primary with each on the ballot could give the edge to Rep. Craig.