Christine Elizabeth Smith (née Flint, born March 4, 1958)[1] is an American politician, retired Democratic political consultant, and former businesswoman serving as the junior United States senator from Minnesota since 2018.

Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash weeks before the 2002 election, Smith managed former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale's campaign for the seat.

[16] When Lieutenant Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon announced she would not seek reelection, Dayton selected Smith as his running mate in the 2014 gubernatorial election.

He cited Smith's work on passing legislation for new Minnesota Vikings Stadium, as well as her support for the Destination Medical Center project with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

[10][19] She spent a significant amount of time traveling the state in support of the priorities of Dayton's administration, including funding for optional preschool for all four-year-olds, transportation infrastructure, and rural broadband internet access.

[20][21] In 2016 Roll Call named Smith to its "America's Top 25 Most Influential Women in State Politics" list, citing her high-profile role in the Dayton administration.

[25][26] Democrats in the state immediately united around Smith as the party's candidate in the November 2018 special election to fill Franken's term.

[37] In response to the insurrection, she called for Trump's immediate removal from office through the invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and impeachment, saying that the president needed to be held accountable for the attack and that "he is dangerous to our democracy and to public safety.

"[51] On May 2, 2022, just after Politico obtained and released a 98-page U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade, Smith responded in a tweet, "This is bullshit.

"[52] After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, Senators Smith and Elizabeth Warren wrote a New York Times op-ed calling on President Joe Biden to unblock "critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services.

"[53] On April 2, 2024, Smith published an essay, "I Hope to Repeal an Arcane Law That Could Be Misused to Ban Abortion Nationwide", in The New York Times.

[54] In March 2019, Smith and 37 other senators signed a letter to US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices" and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program.

[57] In a 2021 letter, Smith and four colleagues wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to criticize the company's Diem digital currency project.

"[58] In 2022, Smith and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson to object to a plan to allow for the inclusion of Bitcoin in their 401(k)s.[59] In December 2018, Smith and 20 other senators signed a letter to Commissioner of Food and Drugs Scott Gottlieb stating their approval of the Food and Drug Administration's actions to hinder youth access to e-cigarettes and urging the FDA "to take additional, stronger steps to prevent and reduce e-cigarette use among youth.

[61] During a floor speech on racial justice, she called for passage of the bill along with the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act to end the "failed policy" of cannabis prohibition that "contributes to mass incarceration and over-policing of communities of color".

[65] In March 2018 Smith and nine other senators signed a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

[66] In the lead-up to the 2018 elections, Smith said her record in the Senate showed she would fight pharmaceutical companies to improve people's lives, and that she would continue to fight to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs in Minnesota, for example by making generic drugs more available, preventing people with preexisting conditions from being charged more, and allowing Minnesotans to buy in to Medicare if they are dissatisfied with their options on the insurance market.

[68] In December 2018, Smith and 41 other senators signed a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with preexisting conditions."

"[73] In August 2018, Smith was one of 17 senators to sign a letter spearheaded by Kamala Harris to US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen demanding that the Trump administration take immediate action in attempting to reunite 539 migrant children with their families, citing each passing day of inaction as intensifying "trauma that this administration has needlessly caused for children and their families seeking humanitarian protection.

The legislation was meant to correct a Federal Railroad Administration rollback of a proposed rule intended to establish safety standards.