With three weeks to go until Election Day (all articles this week are required by law to mention this fact), Republicans are still hopeful that they can keep control of the Senate. Democrats need to hold on to all the seats they currently hold, and to flip at least four seats currently held by the GOP (actually five, to deal with the Fetterman Uncertainty Principle).
With Sen. Tina Smith (D) retiring at the end of this year, Republicans have been hoping to flip her seat, with help from last year’s manufactured rightwing outrage over supposedly rampant fraud and Donald Trump’s increasingly vicious racism against Somali Americans.
On paper, it seems unlikely that Minnesota is a pickup opportunity: Minnesotans haven’t elected a Republican to the Senate since Norm Coleman in 2002, when incumbent Democrat Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash the month before the election. Minnesota hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential race in over 50 years.
On top of the historic trend, Minnesotans are still boiling mad over Trump’s murderous ethnic cleansing campaign in January and February. That’s reflected in a Minnesota Star Tribune/KARE 11 Minnesota poll released Monday. It found that only 38 percent of Minnesotans approve of Trump’s performance as president, while 58 percent disapprove.
But that same poll also showed Republican Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter who's never run for anything, just four percentage points behind Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor nominee, a result that’s within the poll’s margin of error. By now, Minnesotans should know better than to ever vote again for another Republican who spells ‘Michele’ with one ‘l.’ What gives, Minnesota?
You can also use the button below to donate an amount of your choice at Paypal, or we have a Patreon too.
The Star Tribune poll has support for Flanagan at 47 percent and Tafoya at 43 percent, with nine percent undecided. That’s not far off from other polling in the race, which has consistently shown Flanagan leading since August’s primaries, but not by a blowout. Independents lean toward Tafoya, with 38 percent, compared to 32 percent for Flanagan, but with a big 29 percent saying they’re still undecided.
Not surprisingly, Flanagan has a big lead over Tafoya — 37 points — in Minnesota’s two most populous counties, while Tafoya does better in rural northern and southern parts of the state, where she has a 17-point advantage over Flanagan.
With the national Republican Party and its constellation of dark-money PACs spending like crazy to hold on to contested seats in states like Ohio, Texas, Maine, Iowa, Alaska, and even South Carolina, Tafoya doesn’t appear to be getting much monetary love from outside the state. When John Thune stumped for her recently in front of a scenic cornfield near Le Seur, he didn’t exactly hint that the Senate Leadership Fund would be opening the money spigot for Tafoya, either.
Thune told reporters, “As we think about the map and races, yes, there's more interest, and every day when she's out there and has an opportunity to make her case, and there's a lot of really positive buzz around the country, and obviously translating that into financial resources and support coming here is something we hope to see happen.” Honestly, they think the world of Tafoya, and wish her well in her endeavors, should they prove successful.
The Star Tribune poll also found that way more Democratic voters said they’re enthusiastic about voting this fall, while Republican voters have historically had lower turnout when Trump isn’t on the ballot.
Tafoya, well aware of Trump’s low ratings in the state, has made a few cautious moves to distance herself a little bit from Dear Leader, with recent TV ads pointing out she’s a “pro-choice Republican” and saying that “When Trump is right, I’ll work with him. When he’s wrong I’ll stand up for Minnesota.”
Flanagan has hammered Tafoya for trying to present herself as a loyal MAGA supporter who will cautiously squeak up when it might benefit her. In a Sunday interview with CBS affiliate WCCO, Flanagan said, “It took 216 days for Michele Tafoya to say that the war in Iran was wrong. Up until that point she had been lock step with Donald Trump, and in particular when asked about the high cost of fuel and diesel prices.” Flanagan noted that Tafoya dismissed high prices by telling voters to act like “patriots” and “take one less trip to Starbucks.”
Flanagan told WCCO that she’s “incredibly angry with the fraud as most Minnesotans are as well,” and notes that she has supported the state’s independent inspector general investigation into the fraud scheme, which we’ll remind you was masterminded by a white grifter lady who was convicted in 2025, although many of the 98 other people charged with crimes were Somali Americans. That’s out of a Minnesota Somali community numbering around 80,000, most of whom are citizens just trying to make a living.
Still, Tafoya has made the scandal a central talking point, and even if Republican campaign money isn’t coming her way, Dear Leader has been doing all he can to help out Republicans in the midterms with his incredibly racist call for Minnesotans to “fight back” against Somalis in Minnesota. Back in December, Trump called Somali Americans “garbage” and said they “contribute nothing” to Minnesota or to America.
With his own approval in the garbage pit and the midterms looking bad, Trump went once more to the filthy racist well over the weekend. He tacitly endorsed race war in a post to his fake Twitter substitute, claiming Minnesota is “being taken over by Somali immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State.” Trump also played up the theme of white victimhood, saying “The Somalians [sic] should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!”
Then on Monday, ICE agents raided Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house in DC, which Trump seized on during a campaign appearance in Ohio, insisting that Omar came from “one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet.” The crowd chanted “Deport! Deport!” as Trump piled on the racist invective, saying that Somalis in Minnesota (most of whom are US citizens) “came over here. They had nothing. They came from a government that doesn’t exist. […] They come from a part of the world that only knows how to kill each other.”
While he was at it, Trump explained to Ohio voters that Somali Americans all “think they’re in Somalia where they don’t have pants to wear,” adding, “They come here, they go in BMWs and Mercedes, and they like that. Somalia, they love Mercedes. They come in, they have nothing, and they’re the number one buyers of Mercedes-Benz and BMWs in the state of Minnesota. The whole thing is crazy! Is crazy! Low IQ people!”
There’s a really good dissertation to be done on the racist trope of trying to whip up white people to take revenge on brown people who have nice cars, no doubt given to them for free by socialist Democrats.
Also at that rally, Trump endorsed Tafoya, telling Ohio voters, “We’re not going to stand for it. […] You have to vote for Michele Tafoya, who's a very respected person.”
Tafoya tried to put a positive spin on the endorsement, saying Tuesday, “I heard about that. Look, this campaign is about bringing all Minnesotans together, whether they voted for President Trump or whether they voted for Kamala Harris, or whether they didn't vote at all.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that reporters have pressed Tafoya on all the nice things Trump keeps saying about Somali Americans. She and Flanagan are scheduled to debate Friday evening, and we sure hope the topic comes up.
[Minnesota Star Tribune / The Hill / MPR News / Huffpost]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’d like to make a one-time (or recurring) donation, you can click this here button.
“pro-choice Republican”
I'm not a brain genius, but it is LITERALLY impossible to be pro-choice if you are voting for the piece of shit GQP.
Trump: "They come from a part of the world that only knows how to kill each other.”
America?