Peggy Flanagan is used to representing Tim Walz. As Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor, she serves primarily as an understudy.
On Wednesday afternoon, that meant he had to deliver the speech Walz was originally scheduled to give on the third day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — before President Joe Biden abandoned his campaign and set in motion events that upended the lives and possibly the political futures of Walz and Flanagan.
Until he was chosen as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Walz was scheduled to speak at a much smaller venue several miles from the United Center stage at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. With the governor now having a more important speech to deliver, Flanagan stepped in. “Our whole job is just to ‘be ready,'” she joked to an audience of several dozen people. Readiness will be even more important if Harris makes history as the first female president to take Walz to the White House. Flanagan, 44, would reach a milestone herself by becoming the first Native American woman to serve as governor of a state in the country.
A longtime activist and community organizer, Flanagan has none of the charisma of an average citizen turned politician like Walz. But the two share a folksy sense of humor. She is a member of the Ojibwe tribe, which she says is the “largest tribe in Minnesota and the best-looking tribe in Minnesota.” “My English name is Peggy Flanagan,” she told the audience. “My Ojibwe name is woman who speaks with a loud and clear voice.” A moment later, she added with a wide grin, “It’s OK, you can laugh.”
Although she is 16 years younger than Walz, Flanagan was the first to get interested in politics. Fresh out of college, she volunteered on Senator Paul Wellstone’s 2002 campaign, which ended tragically when the two-term Democrat died in a plane crash 10 days before the election. Wellstone’s family and former colleagues founded Camp Wellstone, a training program for aspiring politicians and activists. Walz was there in 2005, an Army veteran and public school teacher trying to win a Republican seat in the House in his first campaign. “He was my camper. I taught him everything he knows!” Flanagan said.
Flanagan served in the state legislature for four years before she and Walz formed a statewide slate ahead of the 2018 gubernatorial election. (They won re-election in 2022.) During the party’s convention this week, she touted her record in Minnesota, which includes passing laws guaranteeing access to abortion and IVF, paid family leave, an expanded child tax credit and free breakfast and lunch in public schools across the state. Democrats have come to refer to that slate as the “Minnesota Miracle,” a feat they hope to replicate nationally.
As Flanagan noted in her speech, Democrats in Minnesota have accomplished most of their agenda with just a one-seat majority in the Senate — which is likely the largest majority Democrats can have in Washington next year. “A lot of what we’ve fought for over the last 20 years has come true,” she said. “In Minnesota, we like to think of ourselves as humble people, but today we’re going to brag.”
Republicans have attacked Walz’s conduct in Minnesota as extreme, criticizing him for his policies that provide benefits to illegal immigrants and accusing him of signing a law requiring public schools to stock tampons in boys’ restrooms (a claim that has been debunked). They have also accused him of exaggerating parts of his biography, including his military service. Flanagan did not address the Republicans’ most inflammatory allegations, but limited himself to the more generally popular elements of the policies she and Walz have pushed through in Minnesota.
Like Walz, Flanagan has a fiery side. She devoted much of her remarks to refuting the notion that Walz and the policies he has implemented – and which Harris is running for – are too progressive. “Access to basic resources like housing and food is not radical. It is rational,” Flanagan said. “Demanding control over our own bodies is not extreme. It is the damn minimum of what we should expect,” she added, drawing gasps and cheers from the crowd.
I caught up with Flanagan after the speech. She said her and Walz’s tenure showed him to be “an incredible partner for women in leadership.” “People could see themselves in our ballot,” Flanagan said, “and I see that happening now with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Different life experiences, but shared values.”
She wore tribal-style earrings and eight of her nails were painted pink. The other two were bright green. “I decided to paint one nail chartreuse for Brat Summer,” she told me, “and the others are pink because I thought I wouldn’t get away with all-green nails as lieutenant governor of Minnesota.” Maybe she would have gotten away with it a few weeks ago, when Flanagan was as anonymous as any other political candidate from a midsize state. Now, agitated Democrats in Chicago are treating her, perhaps presumptuously, as governor-elect.
Flanagan told me she learned of Walz’s selection at the same time as everyone else. But her phone rang almost immediately after the announcement: “Buckle up,” Walz told her. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
