A decades-old family history involving the grandfather of Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan has entered the state's Senate race in its final weeks, raising questions about whether voters will weigh allegations that were never proven against a candidate who was a toddler when the man died.
The report, published by Minnesota outlet Alpha News and supported by old newspaper accounts and court records, detailed the troubled mental health history of John Jacob Hartmann, Flanagan's maternal grandfather. Hartmann spent decades in psychiatric custody, escaped twice and was suspected in multiple killings, though he was never charged in any of them. Flanagan was three years old when he died on Feb. 6, 1983.
Flanagan, the state's lieutenant governor, is running against former television sports reporter Michelle Tafoya to fill the seat held by Democrat Tina Smith, who is retiring. Neither candidate has commented publicly since the allegations resurfaced. The development has nonetheless generated attention on social media, with Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet highlighting what he called «violent mental illness in Minnesota Democrat Peggy Flanagan's family» in a post that included a photo of Flanagan wearing a shirt reading «Protect trans kids.» Dustin Grage, a columnist with Town Hall, wrote that the report «adds up.»
According to a Feb. 9, 1983, article in the newspaper now known as The Minnesota Star Tribune, Hartmann was committed on Nov. 1, 1951, after his wife filed a petition claiming he was «mentally ill and dangerous.» The commitment followed the discovery of the body of a man named Theodore Foth burning in his room, although Hartmann was never charged in Foth's death. The paper also named Hartmann as a suspect in the 1964 murder of a fellow patient at the Minnesota Security Hospital, but he was never charged in that case either.
Hartmann was transferred to Anoka State Hospital in 1970 and escaped to New Mexico, where the newspaper reported he was suspected in the deaths of a man and a woman. A 1973 Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, however, does not mention those alleged murder allegations. Instead, the ruling stated that New Mexico authorities picked Hartmann up on a warrant issued by Minnesota Probate Judge Melvin Peterson in September 1970, finding that he was living in the state «without incident and without hiding his identity following his escape in Minnesota.» A special prosecutor later released Hartmann after finding him «sane and safe to be at large.»
Hartmann was apprehended in Colorado on a misdemeanor charge the following year and returned to Minnesota. In April 1979, he failed to return from a visit pass at the Minnesota Security Hospital and fled to Missouri, where he allegedly threatened U.S. District Judge Miles Welton Lord during a phone call. Lord had presided over Hartmann's earlier federal challenge to his involuntary return from Colorado to Minnesota and initially dismissed claims against several Minnesota officials. Federal authorities charged Hartmann over the alleged threat, according to a 1979 Star Tribune article.
The report lands as Flanagan has frequently discussed her upbringing, including being raised by a single mother who relied on SNAP benefits and housing assistance, and the influence of her Indigenous father, a tribal land rights activist who helped inspire her advocacy for Native American communities. In an interview with Minnesota Women's Press, she said both her mother and grandmother were single mothers, describing her grandmother as having raised four daughters «at a time when that didn't happen a lot.» A death notice for Hartmann listed Flanagan's mother, Patricia Hartmann, and her three sisters — Kathleen, Mary and Margaret — as his surviving daughters. An obituary for Patricia, who died in 2022, listed her maiden name as Hartmann and identified her father as John.
It remains unclear whether the decades-old allegations will affect the contest. Flanagan's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. With the midterm elections just weeks away, the episode has added an unusual personal dimension to a race otherwise defined by the candidates' records and the state's political leanings.