Blue on Blue, MN Heartache: Fraud Allegations Erupt in Dem Senate Primary

Awww. You hate to see this kind of … what’s the word again? Accountability?

Democrats may get a real whiff of it in Minnesota. A competitive Senate primary for the open seat left by Tina Smith’s retirement has forced the massive Walz-era frauds into the spotlight in a way that the state’s narrative minders in the media have avoided for the last two years. Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan found herself in Rep. Angie Craig’s crosshairs over the scandals, while Flanagan did her best to pass the buck.

Granted, Craig borrowed the Protection Racket Media’s “Republicans Pounce!™” framing, but it still makes the Quality Learing Center a bigger story in Minnesota:

Democrats are lashing out at fellow Democrats for the nation’s largest pandemic-era welfare fraud, theft that handed Republicans a potent example of government waste from Democratic mismanagement.

In a recent debate, Rep. Angie Craig flashed anger as she connected the scandal to progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, her opponent in the state’s Democratic Senate primary.

“It pisses me off that you completely put all of the responsibility on the governor of Minnesota when you were the No. 2 elected leader in Minnesota during that period of time,” she said. “Republicans, they are going to have a field day with this with you.”

Flanagan was alongside Gov. Tim Walz when the fraud was uncovered. Craig, who represents a swing district, added she felt it was her “responsibility to warn Democratic primary voters that Republicans are dying to run against you because they believe that you have a unique vulnerability on fraud.”

Nor is this a one-off. Craig’s allies are running an ad campaign that leans heavily on the fraud to disqualify Flanagan:

Attacks against Flanagan have shown up in ads run by a group backing Craig. “When Tim Walz trusted Peggy Flanagan to take the lead on housing programs, Flanagan failed,” one ad claims. “She missed the fraud. Her work was called a dereliction of duty.”

It’s not as though no one has talked about it. All-but-certain GOP nominee Michele Tafoya has brought up the scandal at every campaign stop. However, the state’s media outlets – which frankly resemble Democrat state media most of the time – have largely ignored Tafoya’s pointed and well-informed attacks on Walz and the DFL establishment. Craig’s decision to use it as an attack line forces more coverage of the scandal that even these court stenographers can’t ignore. 

Flanagan, for her part, has responded essentially by pointing out how useless she’s been. She claimed that she let Walz take the lead on the scandal, which may be technically true but also demonstrates that lieutenant governors don’t really have much to do in a formal sense, and Flanagan didn’t even manage to reach that level successfully. Flanagan is running on her supposed success in her current office, and Craig is correctly pointing out that the Walz-Flanagan administration has been a clueless disaster for Minnesotans in response. 

The Minnesota primary will take place tomorrow, along with the more entertaining primary fight in Wisconsin with the Democrats’ gubernatorial nomination and Francesca Hong’s “I Hate American Holidays” campaign. Tafoya dominates the polling for the GOP nomination in Minnesota’s Senate primary, but the polls indicate a razor-close race between Craig and Flanagan. Most of those polls are from PPP and other Dem-oriented pollsters, but KSTP/Survey USA ran three polls this summer, and Craig narrowly led in two of them, including the most recent iteration last week. It sounds like the fraud story may be resonating more than the state-based media prefers. This might be the first measure of accountability coming for the corrupt and incompetent Tim Walz and his allies.

Say … shouldn’t someone be passing around the popcorn by now? Make mine with extra butter, and be sure to save some for Tafoya.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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