Why lesbian Rep. Angie Craig says she's ‘ready for the fight' in her run to be Minnesota's next U.S. senator
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Now in her fourth term representing Minnesota's Second Congressional District, Craig is aiming higher at a moment when both democracy and queer equality feel precariously under siege. Following the November election that returned President Donald Trump to the White House over Vice President Kamala Harris, Craig is clear-eyed about what's at stake.
Related: Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig battles for reelection to continue path toward LGBTQ+ equality
'We're in the fight of our lives,' she said in an interview with The Advocate. 'But I'm holding up pretty well, and I'm up for the fight.'
Craig, a Democrat and the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to Congress from Minnesota, won her D+1 district by nearly 14 percentage points in 2024. 'Because rural Minnesotans know I'll meet them where they are,' she said. 'They know I'll listen and deliver.'
Angie CraigCourtesy Angie Craig for Minnesota
Her ability to connect across political lines has earned her unusual traction in a state increasingly seen as a bellwether for the cultural and electoral divisions reshaping the nation. 'I outperformed the top of the ticket more in my most rural county,' she noted. 'I don't stay in my blue bubble.'
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Her own story deeply informs Craig's political approach. 'Yes, I'm a lesbian. I've been happily married to my wife for 18 years now,' she said. 'We've got four sons, and we now are the proud Mimi and Gigi's — the grandparents of three grandsons.' She added, 'It does make a difference. When you have visibility, and [people in communities] meet you on a human level, they get to know you.'
But Craig is not just a symbol — she's also a legislative force. As the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, she has helped shape federal farm and food policy in a state where agriculture is the economic bedrock. 'I came back, I took on the status quo, became the top Democrat,' she said. 'I can go anywhere in Minnesota and talk with family farmers.'
She's also among the few Democrats willing to tackle complex, often uncomfortable conversations, like transgender athlete inclusion in youth sports. 'We have to be clear-eyed that voters don't understand the trans community as well as we thought they did,' Craig said. 'But I don't know how anyone could argue against standing up for and supporting a community that is being targeted for discrimination.'
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Now, with a Senate seat on the line, she's bringing that same philosophy statewide. Equality PAC, the political arm of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, has endorsed her bid, praising her visibility and legislative commitment as both historic and essential. Craig is one of several high-profile LGBTQ+ candidates looking to counter the Trump administration's hardline policies.
Those policies include a sweeping executive order Trump signed in February, reinterpreting Title IX to bar transgender girls and women from competing in women's sports. The Republican-controlled House passed a companion bill, and Senate Republicans forced a test vote in March on legislation to define Title IX 'based solely on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth.' That bill failed 51-45, with Democrats voting uniformly against it. But the cultural pressure hasn't abated.
Craig has been clear: She opposes blanket federal bans and supports leaving sports governance to local school systems and associations.
On proposed federal bans, she was unequivocal: 'The idea that we're going to subject all girls' sports to invasive checks .… It's ridiculous how Republicans have proposed to deal with this.'
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Instead, she argues, those decisions should be made locally. 'Every sport differs so dramatically,' she said. 'I very much believe that these decisions should be up to our local schools and our local sports associations.'
It's the existential threats to LGBTQ+ people under Trump that most animate her candidacy. Craig called the reinstated ban on transgender military service members 'immoral' and 'fundamentally unfair.'
'What the hell are you doing?' she asked bluntly. 'Where are your values when people who are willing to die for this nation — you want to eradicate them from the U.S. military?'
Angie CraigCourtesy Angie Craig for Minnesota
Craig says she sees the danger as not just political but deeply personal. 'I wake up every single day and watch an administration take away the rights of communities that I care about and people that I love,' she said. 'This is a fight I've been fighting my whole life.'
That fight has included marriage equality — she and her wife saw the fight for it firsthand.
'We got married in California in 2008, and the next month, Proposition 8 passed,' she recalled. 'We didn't know whether we would still be married or not.'
Now, with the future of Obergefell in doubt after conservative Justice Clarence Thomas indicated in the Dobbs decision, which revoked the national right to an abortion, that the ruling that allowed same-sex couples to marry should be revisited, Craig remains vigilant: 'Progress is never linear in this country.'
At the heart of her message is a call for Democrats to resist both authoritarianism and complacency.
'We've got to both have a fist up and fight like hell … and have a hand extended to some of these people to come back,' she said. 'That's the only way that we're gonna win again.'
So is her hand out?
'Well, my fist is up, and my hand is out. One hundred percent,' Craig said.
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