Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) will lead Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee in the next Congress after winning a caucus vote Tuesday.
Craig, 52, beat out Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), 72, for the role by a vote of 121 to 91, according to five Democrats in the room, granted anonymity to share the private vote tally. She will become the first woman ranking member of the House Agriculture panel and is part of a larger generational shift among House Democrats, who have forced out a number of aging committee leaders in the wake of their November election losses.
The current ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), dropped out of the race Monday night after winning just five votes in Democrats’ Steering Committee. Scott, 79, faced growing calls over the last several years from rank-and-file Democrats to step down from his committee role, amid concerns about his health, lack of leadership and struggle to negotiate the $1.5 trillion farm bill. But while he had previously defied those efforts, thanks in part to support from the Congressional Black Caucus and Democratic leaders, that support quickly crumbled after first Costa and Craig announced their challenges last month.
Craig has a close relationship with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), whose leadership team provided tacit backing for the Minnesota Democrat to challenge Scott.
In a series of closed-door meetings over the past week, Craig made an aggressive pitch to Democratic House members, citing her credentials as a frontline Democrat from a rural district. During a closed-door Steering panel meeting, Craig argued that the party needed a Midwestern battleground Democrat in committee leadership to balance out the many senior Democratic leaders hailing from the coasts, according to three Steering panel members who were in the room and were granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.
In other closed-door meetings, Craig also touted her close relationship with former House Ag Chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who is now a lobbyist on farm issues and still serves as an informal adviser to Craig. Peterson, who lost his reelection in 2020, has been eager to stay involved with the Agriculture panel from the sidelines.
Craig’s election marks an incredibly rare development on Capitol Hill: Two Minnesotans poised to lead their party on the Agriculture committees
Craig’s fellow Minnesotan Sen. Amy Klobuchar is already set to take over as the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee next year.
