Minnesota Voters Seize Senate Nomination From Donors

Minnesota voters triggered a serious breach of campaign protocol Tuesday by selecting Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan over U.S. Rep. Angie Craig in the Democratic primary for Tina Smith’s open Senate seat. The result allowed counted ballots to overrule the donor-approved inevitability assembled by consultants, strategists and other professionals trained to identify public opinion without consulting the public. Flanagan, backed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, had promoted the destabilizing theory that politics should serve “the many” rather than “the money,” threatening the nation’s orderly system in which the money patiently explains what the many were going to want anyway.

Craig’s supporters had emphasized her swing-district victories, moderation and electability, a quality traditionally established through private polling, expensive slide decks and repeated television appearances by people who live nowhere near the electorate. Voters nevertheless chose the candidate they preferred, disregarding months of expert guidance about whom they were permitted to find appealing. President Donald Trump condemned the result as a dangerous expansion of democracy. “Peggy Flanagan won because Minnesota let everybody vote, including people without television contracts, consulting retainers or private equity portfolios, and frankly that is very unfair,” Trump said. “The consultants should vote first, the billionaires should vote second, and then, if there is anything left, perhaps the people can have a small vote.”

Flanagan will face Republican nominee Michele Tafoya, the former NFL sideline reporter whose years observing powerful men collide while summarizing the obvious provided standard preparation for service in the United States Senate. Democratic strategists warned that Flanagan’s victory could encourage reckless expectations nationwide, including the belief that grassroots organizing, endorsements and popular support should influence elections more than catering invoices from political conferences. Party officials are now developing safeguards for November, when Minnesotans may again attempt to choose their own senator without written authorization from leadership, corporate donors and six anonymous super PAC treasurers. The primary confirmed that American democracy remains dangerously vulnerable to voters.

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