Angie Craig (1972–)

Angie Craig is a Minnesota congresswoman. In April 2025, in her fourth term representing Minnesota’s Second District, she announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Tina Smith, who had announced she would not seek reelection.

Angela Dawn (Angie) Craig was born in West Helena (Phillips County) on February 14, 1972, one of three children raised by a single mother; the family lived in a mobile home park for much of her youth. She graduated from Nettleton High School in Jonesboro (Craighead County) in 1990 and then went on to the University of Memphis. There, Craig worked two jobs to pay for her education and also served as editor of the school’s newspaper, the Daily Helmsman. She received a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1994.

Following her graduation, she interned briefly at the Memphis Commercial Appeal before becoming a full-time reporter, a job she held until 1997, when she joined Smith & Nephew, a multinational medical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in England.

Beginning in 1997, Craig was involved in a legal battle over the adoption of one of her sons that Craig called the biggest challenge of her life. Craig was then living in Tennessee when she and her then partner Debra Langston sought to adopt a son. At the time, Tennessee had no laws pertaining to the joint adoption of children by gay and lesbian aspiring parents. At the last minute, just after the birth, the parents of the birth mother, who had agreed to the adoption, intervened, setting off a three-year legal battle that resulted in a precedent-setting court ruling, In Re Adoption of M.J.S. (2000), that allowed the adoption to be finalized. While Craig and Langston’s relationship later ended, they agreed to share custody of their adopted son. Craig married Cheryl Greene, a former teacher in Minnesota, in 2008; the couple has four sons.

Craig was with Smith & Nephew from 1997 to 2005, holding a number of positions leading to her appointment as director of communications for the orthopedics division. In 2002, she was promoted to director of corporate affairs and transferred to London.

In 2004, she was promoted to vice president of U.S. Investor and Media Relations. In 2005, she left Smith & Nephew, returning to the United States to join St. Jude Medical, Inc., a global medical device company whose headquarters were in Little Canada, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul. There, Craig became vice president of communications, remaining with St. Jude until it was acquired in 2017 by Abbott Laboratories. In 2013, she assumed the role of Head of Global Human Resources; she left Abbott Laboratories in February 2017.

Craig made her first foray into electoral politics in 2016, seeking the Second District seat from Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives. While she won the Democratic nomination, she was defeated in the general election by the Republican nominee, Jason Lewis, a conservative former talk show host, by just under 7,000 votes. Seeking a rematch in 2018, Craig was again unopposed for the Democratic nomination, and in a year that saw the Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives, she defeated Lewis by more than 18,000 votes, garnering over 52.5 percent of the vote. In winning her seat, she became the first openly lesbian mother to be elected to Congress, as well as the first woman elected to represent Minnesota’s deeply purple Second District and the first openly gay member of Congress from Minnesota. After winning solid reelection victories in 2020 and 2022, in 2024, she garnered 55.5 percent of the vote to earn her biggest win.

Upon assuming office in January 2019, Craig took her seat on the Committee of Agriculture, with her subcommittee assignments being the Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development and the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities, Risk Management, and Credit. In addition, Craig has served on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and its subcommittee on Communication and Technology and the subcommittee on Health. She has also served on the Committee on Small Business and its Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations. In December 2024, House Democrats elected her as the ranking member of the House Committee on Agriculture, bypassing others with more seniority.

Craig became a member of several caucuses, including the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus (co-chair), the New Democratic Coalition, the House Pro-Choice Caucus, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, the Congressional Family Business Caucus, the Congressional Fertilizer Caucus, the Congressional Labor Caucus, the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, the Congressional Native American Caucus, the Congressional Rural Broadband Caucus (co-chair), the Congressional Supply Chain Caucus (co-chair and co-founder), the Democratic Women’s Caucus, the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, the Heartland Caucus, the House Reproductive Freedom Caucus, and the Monopoly Busters Caucus, of which she is the co-chair and co-founder.

As a member of the House, she advocated for increased technical training while seeking to increase the number of vocational jobs available in the workforce. She has consistently sought to increase funding for special education programs and has also sought to cut taxes on small businesses and the middle class. She also successfully sponsored legislation that capped the cost of insulin at $35 for Medicare users.

On April 29, 2025, as a centrist candidate, Craig announced she would seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat held since 2018 by Tina Smith, who opted not to run for reelection.

For additional information:
Angie Craig for Minnesota. https://angiecraig.com/ (accessed August 29, 2025).

Congresswoman Angie Craig, Second District, Minnesota. https://craig.house.gov/ (accessed August 29, 2025).

Montgomery, David. “Adoption Struggle Shaped 2^nd District Candidate Angie Craig.” Pioneer Press, October 7, 2016. https://www.twincities.com/2016/10/07/angie-craig-2nd-congressional-district/ (accessed August 29, 2025).

“U.S. Representative Angie Craig’s Path to Parenthood.” Family Equality, April 29, 2021. https://familyequality.org/story/angie-craig-adoption-journey/ (accessed August 29, 2025).

William H. Pruden III
Raleigh, North Carolina