Minnesota’s Democratic U.S. Senate Nominee Inflated Academic Record
John McCormick
Wall Street Journal
October 21, 2026
Peggy Flanagan said she “graduated Phi Beta Kappa” while arguing a decade ago for legislation to encourage greater teacher diversity in Minnesota’s public schools.
Now the state’s lieutenant governor and Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, Flanagan was a Minnesota House member when she said college teaching diversity transformed her from a high-school graduate with a 1.75 grade-point average to a University of Minnesota honors student.
“Everything changed, there was a switch, something clicked,” Flanagan said during a March 2016 legislative hearing. “I graduated Phi Beta Kappa because I saw myself reflected in my teacher and I saw myself reflected in my curriculum.”
A commencement program for Flanagan’s class of 2002 doesn’t list her as an honors student, although it did highlight those with GPAs of 3.5 or higher. The university’s current GPA threshold for Phi Beta Kappa is 3.65 for a senior.
The Wall Street Journal asked Flanagan’s campaign on Oct. 12 to provide information proving her membership in what is often called the nation’s oldest and the most exclusive honor society. It also told her campaign Phi Beta Kappa’s headquarters would release any membership records that might exist with her permission.
Eight days later, her campaign acknowledged she never belonged to Phi Beta Kappa.
“The lieutenant governor was nominated for Phi Beta Kappa, but like too many other students, she couldn’t afford the application fees to become a part of the honor society,” Alexandra Fetissoff, a campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The current lifetime membership fee at the University of Minnesota is $99, although it was likely considerably less more than two decades ago. Many chapters also waive the fee or make other accommodations in cases of financial hardship.
Flanagan faces former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya in a surprisingly close race where the latest polling shows the Democrat leading by three or four percentage points. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday moved the race to “lean Democrat,” one notch short of tossup.
Flanagan’s campaign also acknowledged she didn’t complete a double major at the school, as is implied in an official state biography that states she “earned her bachelor’s degree in American Indian studies and child psychology.”
She graduated with a child psychology major, according to her College of Liberal Arts commencement program. Her campaign said she received a minor in American Indian studies.
Flanagan, who has highlighted an Ojibwe father not part of her upbringing in suburban Minneapolis, said in 2016 it wasn’t until her sophomore year at the U of M that she had a teacher that she felt looked like her.
An emphasis on her Native American ties has been central to Flanagan’s political brand ever since she first ran for public office two years after graduating from college when she sold herself in 2004 as potentially the first Native American member of the Minneapolis School Board.
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