The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association has launched a $2 million advertising campaign attacking Rep. Angie Craig over her votes on immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term, escalating an already bitter Minnesota Senate primary weeks before the state party is set to weigh in. The 30-second spot, narrated by local school board member Mary Granlund, targets Craig’s support for the Laken Riley Act and casts her as out of step with Democrats angered by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Craig is running against Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, with the primary scheduled for Aug. 11 and the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party expected to endorse a candidate at its convention at the end of May. Kevin Holst, the group’s executive director, said the ad effort is part of the organization’s broader effort, adding that it is “trying to be a leader in electing the right kinds of Democrats.” He called the race “a defining primary,” saying voters are tired of politicians who “go to D.C. and go along to get along,” and that they want lawmakers who are “morally centered and grounded in the work that they’re doing.”
The campaign leans hard on one of the most painful episodes in Minnesota immigration politics this year. Granlund says she was present when Liam Ramos was detained, describing armed agents, masks and guns as she watched the encounter unfold. She says Ramos was taken to a Texas detention center, and in the ad asks, “Who takes a child?” She also says, “She voted to give ICE the power to abduct and indefinitely detain parents and kids like Liam. And then she voted to thank them. How could we possibly trust Angie Craig?”
Craig has already tried to blunt the criticism. In early March, she wrote in the Minnesota Star Tribune that she regretted voting for the Laken Riley Act and said that supporting any bill giving ICE new authority in the Trump administration was the wrong decision. After the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota known as Operation Metro Surge, she introduced articles of impeachment against then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and later announced legislation to strip new funding from ICE in the GOP tax cut and spending measure known as Trump’s big beautiful bill.
The fight shows how immigration has become one of the sharpest fault lines inside the Democratic Party, especially in primaries where Trump’s mass deportation agenda has pushed ICE to the center of the debate. Craig, a moderate lawmaker who flipped a Republican-held district in 2018, is under attack from the left at a moment when Minnesota has become especially sensitive to immigration enforcement after two American citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration agents earlier this year. Holst called Craig’s support for the Laken Riley Act an “act of political expediency,” a charge that will likely follow her deeper into the race as party leaders decide whether to rally behind Flanagan or leave the contest to the voters in August.
