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Tafoya Narrows Gap in Minnesota Senate Race as Fraud Scandal Weighs on Flanagan
ReTafoya Narrows Gap in Minnesota Senate Race as Fraud Scandal Weighs on Flanagan
Republican nominee Michele Tafoya has pulled within four points of Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota's Senate race, prompting Fox News to shift its rating toward the GOP as a welfare fraud scandal continues to shadow the Democratic ticket.
Republican Senate nominee Michele Tafoya has narrowed the gap with Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan to just four percentage points in Minnesota, prompting Fox News to move the race toward Republicans less than three weeks before Election Day. The shift, from Likely Democrat to Lean Democrat, signals that a state that has not elected a Republican to the Senate in nearly a quarter-century is now genuinely in play.
A new Minnesota Star Tribune/KARE 11 poll shows Tafoya trailing Flanagan by four points as she seeks to flip the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith. Tafoya, a former longtime NFL sideline reporter, has been heavily recruited by national Republicans, including National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Sen. Tim Scott, who said the race «will come down to the wire.»
The contest is unfolding against the backdrop of Minnesota's massive welfare assistance fraud scandal, which has attracted national attention for nearly a year and prompted Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to abandon his 2026 re-election bid. The scandal has become a central issue in Tafoya's campaign against Flanagan, who has served as the state's second-in-command for eight years.
Tafoya argued that «there has been historic fraud under this administration, where Peggy Flanagan, my opponent, has been the second-in-charge in this state.» She said the stolen money «hollowed out these programs that were supposed to be getting help, like kids' meals or autistic kids or seniors who were supposed to be getting visits, health visits, wellness visits.»
Flanagan has said she is «incredibly angry with the fraud,» acknowledged public frustration over the scandal and said more could have been done sooner to catch and prevent it. She has noted that she was not in charge of the state agencies at the center of the scandals or steering the daily state response, and she has distanced herself from Walz, who has accepted blame for the fraud.
Minnesota-based veteran national Republican strategist Kirsten Kukowski told Fox News Digital that the scandal has been «wall-to-wall coverage on every nightly news program here for months and months.» Pointing to Flanagan, Kukowski said she has «a lot of fraud baggage... and it's really made the Senate race really tight here.»
Tafoya is also highlighting a recent spate of gang-related shootings in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs and on Monday announced a five-point plan to combat the violence. «We will do more in our first eight weeks as a U.S. Senator than Peggy Flanagan has done in eight years as the second in charge,» she said, adding that «we have a Somali gang violence problem» that must be named before it can be fixed.
Flanagan, a progressive candidate backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ro Khanna, topped more moderate Democratic Rep. Angie Craig by roughly 20 points in the August Senate primary. Tafoya grabbed over 50% of the vote in the GOP Senate primary as she topped a crowded field of rivals.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune recently teamed up with Tafoya on the campaign trail in Minnesota. But the Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, the top super PAC backing GOP Senate candidates, has yet to make a major investment in the race. Asked about national Republican support, Tafoya said, «We are getting small dollar donations from all over the country. We're getting donations from every county in this state, and I am a happy warrior.»
Democrats are hopeful that popular Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is running for governor this year, may help push Flanagan over the finish line. «Our latest poll has Flanagan with a strong lead, and we fully expect her to be elected to the U.S. Senate,» Lauren French, communications director for the Senate Democrat-aligned Senate Majority PAC, told Fox News Digital.
French argued that «Republicans are spending in deep red states and watching the battleground map extend around them.» The Flanagan campaign did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
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