MN-02: Angie Craig (D)

About the District 

Campaign Website

About Angie:

I grew up in a family with lots of love, but also plenty of hardship. Raised by a single mother in a mobile home park, I watched her strive to complete her teaching degree and raise three kids. My grandmother helped at home and worked in a union shoe factory to contribute. At times, our family didn’t have health insurance, and I watched as my mom struggled to pay the bills that piled up on our kitchen table after my little sister needed hospital care.

Like my mom, I worked two jobs to put myself through state college, with help from student loans. After graduation, I became a newspaper reporter, and then rose over 15 years to eventually lead a workforce of 16,000 employees as head of Global Human Resources for a major Minnesota manufacturer. Today, I’m a mom to four amazing young men – three in college and one in high school.

I was lucky. It’s clear to me that most Americans’ hard work isn’t paying off like it used to. College is no longer affordable and skills training is not a high enough priority. Healthcare costs too much. Incomes aren’t growing fast enough to keep up with the cost of groceries and prescription drug costs.

That’s why I’m running for Congress. Because the opportunities that I was lucky enough to have are disappearing for too many families. And most politicians seem content to sit back and do nothing but continue to help the rich get richer and fight among themselves. It’s a broken political system that works for the special interests, not us. I’m not seeking a career in politics. I’m asking to serve my community by fighting for good public policy – that actually puts people first, for a change.

I’m running for Congress to build a Minnesota for all of us – where every member of every family gets a fair shot at an outstanding education, the career training or retraining for a good job, and a better life. I’m running because I’ve spent over 20 years working in healthcare and have the experience to contribute meaningfully to immediately fixing what’s wrong with healthcare today, lower the cost, and work to expand healthcare to every family.

I will fight for the education, healthcare, job training, and infrastructure investments that will support thousands of new jobs. I’ll support businesses that hire Americans; and work to close loopholes for those that do not. I’ll support policies that reward people for their hard work, including and especially family farmers and small business owners. I will fight for campaign finance reform, the right to organize and collectively bargain, reproductive rights, equal pay and a living wage. I’ll fight to address climate change, immigration reform and work to bring bipartisan solutions back. I’ll work with anyone to make things better for Minnesotans and stand against anyone who’s trying to hurt us.

I’m proud of my family. My wife Cheryl and I have four boys.  I’ve been a soccer mom, a baseball mom, a football mom, a band mom, and more. I’ve also been a working mother and had to fight to be a mother.

We chose Minnesota as our home because as Minnesotans we uniquely understand the importance of family, community, and caring for each other. I live in Eagan, attend church in Apple Valley, and our youngest is in high school in Rosemount. I’m a Rotarian and serve on the Inver Hills Community College Foundation Board.

This is my community.

I will never give up on the Minnesota that together we can create. I humbly ask for your vote this November to represent you in Congress in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District.

The biographical information above was sourced from the campaign website; see link above for more information.