Paul David Wellstone (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was an American academic and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash in Eveleth, Minnesota in 2002. A member of the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, Wellstone was a leading spokesman for the progressive wing of the national Democratic Party.Born in Washington D.C., Wellstone graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. and Ph.D.