Harris-Walz win would make Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan its first Native American and female governor

A win in November for the Democratic ticket could be history making in another way: Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota would presumably become the first Native American woman to lead a state.

After assuming her position in 2019, Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, became the highest ranking Native woman elected to an executive office, according to her official bio. She won re-election in 2022 with Gov. Tim Walz.

Now, with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday tapping Walz as her running mate, a victory against Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, would propel Flanagan, 44, to the position of Minnesota governor.

Walz’s and Flanagan’s current term is up for re-election in 2026. But the state Constitution allows Flanagan to assume the governorship if Walz, for whatever reason, vacates office. She would also become Minnesota’s first female governor.

In a post Tuesday on X, Flanagan congratulated Walz in joining Harris.

Native Americans make up just more than 1% of Minnesota’s total population, according to census data, with many living on the state’s 11 reservations or in its urban centers. The Native vote helped Joe Biden secure a win against Trump in the state in 2020.

In her high-profile role, Flanagan has been outspoken in support of Indigenous rights, championing this year’s change of Minnesota’s state flag — the previous design had been criticized for decades for its depiction of Native Americans.

In 2016, when Flanagan was a state representative, she attended the Democratic National Convention and spoke out against then-nominee Trump, who mocked Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., by calling her Pocahontas.

“Your name is not Pocahontas,” Flanagan said she told her young daughter in a letter. “You should never let any one make you feel anything less than proud of who you are. So despite everything that has happened to our people, and no matter what Donald Trump says, we are still here.”

Flanagan had also been outspoken about Trump’s policies when he was president. In 2020, when Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, one of his senior advisers, visited Minnesota for the opening of the nation’s first task force office dedicated to solving cold cases of missing and murdered Native Americans and Alaska Natives, Flanagan took issue.

“Donald Trump made a career demonstrating and celebrating behavior that perpetuates violence against Native women and girls,” she said at the time.

Since then, Flanagan helped oversee the creation of the state’s first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office in St. Paul, developed to help families navigate the justice system.

“It really matters who’s at the table, and who’s elected,” she told MinnPost in 2023. “We finally have Native representation in the governor’s office and Native women in the Legislature.”

However, governors with Native American ancestry remain rare: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is a member of the Cherokee Nation.