Angie Craig and a Brief History of Minnesota US Representatives Running for the Senate
Sitting or former U.S. Representatives have won U.S. Senate seats in just four of 23 attempts; Craig is the first woman to attempt this feat
As expected, four-term DFL Minnesota U.S. Representative Angie Craig announced on Tuesday that she is running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2026.
Craig joins Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and former State Senator Melisa López Franzen seeking the DFL nomination.
Women have appeared on a Minnesota Republican, Democratic, Farmer-Labor, or DFL primary ballot for the U.S. Senate 27 times, but Craig is poised to become the first woman to do so who has served in the U.S. House.
[Three women were elected to the U.S. House in Minnesota before Rep. Craig: DFLer Coya Knutson (1955-1959), DFLer Betty McCollum (2001-present), and Republican Michelle Bachmann (2007-2015). DFLer Ilhan Omar (2019-present), Republican Michelle Fischbach (2021-present), and DFLer Kelly Morrison (2025-) round out the list.].
Prior to 2026, there were 23 U.S. Senate candidacies by sitting or former Minnesota U.S. Representatives to the nation’s upper legislative chamber in the direct election era – but only four during the last half-century.
Just four of these 23 candidacies were successful.
In 1924, seven-term Progressive-turned-Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Schall won in his second attempt at a U.S. Senate seat.
In June 1923, Schall was one of four sitting or former GOP U.S. Representatives in a nine-candidate primary field to fill the vacancy after the death of Knute Nelson. Schall fared the best of the four, placing third with 17.3 percent with Governor J.A.O. Preus winning the nomination.
The following year, Schall eked out a 0.5-point primary win against former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Oscar Hallam en route to a one-point victory against Farmer-Laborite incumbent Magnus Johnson. Schall would serve two terms before dying in office in 1935 after being struck by an automobile in Washington, D.C.
In 1936, sitting Farmer-Labor U.S. Representative Ernest Lundeen (who also served one term as a Republican in the chamber nearly 20 years prior) replaced nominee Floyd Olson after the governor’s death that August. Lundeen scored a 24.5-point victory that November over former Governor and sitting Republican Rep. Theodore Christianson. It was Lundeen’s fourth bid for a U.S. Senate seat.
A generation later, five-term DFL U.S. Representative Eugene McCarthy unseated two-term Senator Edward Thye in 1958 for his first of two terms in the chamber.
Lastly, Independent-Republican freshman U.S. Rep. Rod Grams won an open seat in 1994 by 5.0 points against former DFL state Representative Ann Wynia. Grams would lose his reelection bid in 2000 to Mark Dayton.
McCarthy is just one of four U.S. Representatives to run as a Democrat or DFLer on a U.S. Senate ballot in Minnesota. The other three are:
- 1934: Freshman Democrat Einar Hoidale lost the general election by 20.7 points to Farmer-Labor Senator Henrik Shipstead
- 1952: Former one-term Farmer-Laborite U.S. Rep. Francis Shoemaker placed last with 18.1 percent in a three-candidate DFL primary won by State Representative William E. Carlson
- 1978: Eight-term Rep. Don Fraser lost the DFL primary by 0.6 points to businessman Bob Short
Five additional sitting or former U.S. Representatives sought the Farmer-Labor Party nomination for U.S. Senate:
- 1923: Former five-term GOP congressman Charles Lindbergh placed third in the 1923 special primary to Magnus Johnson
- 1930: The aforementioned Ernest Lundeen lost his second U.S. Senate bid with 22.9 percent and a third-place general election finish in a race won by Senator Thomas Schall
- 1930: Former two-term Rep. Knud Wefald lost the Farmer-Labor primary to Ernest Lundeen by 17.7 points
- 1934: Freshman Rep. Francis Shoemaker lost his party’s primary by 47.2 points to U.S. Senator Henrik Shipstead
- 1942: Former one-term U.S. Representative and Lieutenant Governor Henry Arens placed a distant third out of four candidates in a primary won by former Governor and U.S. Senator Elmer Benson
Republicans have fielded the largest number of former U.S. House members on U.S. Senate ballots in the state. All told, there have been 11 failed candidacies:
- 1916: Then sitting five-term Republican Rep. Charles Lindbergh placed last in a four-candidate GOP primary with 14.7 percent in a race won by attorney Frank Kellogg
- 1922: Ernest Lundeen made his first of four U.S. Senate bids finishing second behind Senator Frank Kellogg
- 1923 (special): Four sitting or former U.S. Representatives lost the special GOP primary to fill the vacancy after Knute Nelson’s death. Six-term Progressive-turned-Republican Thomas Schall was third (17.3 percent), seven-term Sydney Anderson was fourth (10.2 percent), Ernest Lundeen was seventh in his second U.S. Senate bid (3.4 percent), and former 10-term Rep. Halvor Steenerson placed eighth (2.3 percent).
- 1936: Former Governor and sitting two-term Rep. Theodore Christianson lost the general election to Farmer-Laborite Ernest Lundeen
- 1940: Former one-term U.S. Representative and state Auditor Raymond Chase ran third out of eight candidates in the GOP primary with 10.9 percent, losing to incumbent Henrik Shipstead
- 1970: Sitting five-term Rep. Clark MacGregor lost an open seat to former Vice President and U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey by 16.1 points
- 2006: Sitting three-term Rep. Mark Kennedy was upended by 20.1 points as Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar cruised to victory in an open seat race
- 2020: Former one-term Rep. Jason Lewis fell 5.2 points short of unseating Senator Tina Smith
Prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment, five other Minnesotans served in the U.S. House before winning seats in the U.S. Senate: Democrat Henry Rice (as a territorial delegate) and Republicans Alexander Ramsey (served in the U.S. House from Pennsylvania), William Windom, William Washburn, and Knute Nelson.
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– By the 2020 *standing* (regularly scheduled) election C F “Tina” Smith had already been an *elected* senator.
– My surmise is neither ex-legislator López Franzen nor Craig is the de facto choice of the party hierarchy, thus highly unlikely to be the recipient of the (nominally nonbinding) state DFL endorsing convention next year.
– With a MAGA/Republican in the White House, the DFL seems likely to continue its remarkable streak of statewide victories. The dynamic certainly worked for the Liberals of Canada in the most recent “snap” parliamentary election, in which the late switcheroo of its party leader and the annexation rhetoric of the “Queens/Florida Man” resulted in an unlikely fourth consecutive victory.
Agreed on all your points above (and correction made, thank you). Depending on who else enters the race (and who, if any, withdraws before or after the endorsement), Rep. Craig is currently positioned to enjoy at least a plurality of the (open) DFL primary election with her current opponents racing to the left. A candidacy by Sec. of State Steve Simon might be the only thing that upends that math.