A victory in November for the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would also make history in the Midwestern state, where Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan could become the state’s first female governor and the country’s first Native American governor.
Flanagan, 44, is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and has been lieutenant governor since 2018. If elected as vice president, Walz would be obliged to resign as state governor, leaving Flanagan to assume his place.
She has also been the chairperson of the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness and worked with Walz’s office to establish the nation’s first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office.
Elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2015, she served on the Subcommittee on Child Care Access and Affordability. She was among the lawmakers who created the People of Color and Indigenous Caucus to improve the lives and expand the health, education and economic opportunities for Minnesota’s people of color and Indigenous communities.
Flanagan was a member of the Minneapolis Board of Education from 2005 to 2009.
Before her political career, she was executive director of Children’s Defense Fund Minnesota, a nonprofit organization focused on the needs of the state’s children.
Flanagan has also worked at Wellstone Action, a Minnesota-based advocacy organization, where she trained many community activists and organizers, in addition to elected officials and candidates, including Walz.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, where she earned a degree in American Indian studies and child psychology, Flanagan is married and has one child.
