Minnesota U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

62 Days Until Election Day

 

Minnesota U.S. Senate

 

Status: Democrat Open

2024 Presidential Result: Blue State (Midwest)

 

Outlook: Leans Democrat

 

In discussing Minnesota's Gubernatorial election yesterday, I touched on how the state has been at the forefront of political protest and at times civil unrest over the past several years. This year, the voters will have their say on a statewide federal election, but while it looks somewhat competitive at the moment, few expect there to be a lot of uncertainty in the vote count. No Republican has won a Senate race in Minnesota since one did in 2002 under special circumstances. As is the case in the election that will ensure the state's first female Governor, voters will choose between two women to replace another for the job. No male has son a Senate race in Minnesota since 2014.

 

That happened to be Democrat Al Franken, who was forced to resign in 2018 after evidence and claims of inappropriate behavior with women came to light. The then Governor appointed Tina Smith, then serving as Lt. Governor, a job nobody in Minnesota wants to stick around in, to fill the vacancy. Smith comfortably won a special election that year and then in a somewhat competitive race, won a full term in 2020. She decided not to seek another term this year at the age of 68 and apparently already has been spending a lot of time near family in her native state of New Mexico.

 

Six candidates ran to represent the DFL for the November election in August but only two were known. The one who ran with the endorsement of the state party, signifying that she was the preferred choice of liberal activists was Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan. While she had the Irish-American name of her father, Flanagan's father was a Native American and sovereignty activist in the state. She would apparently become the first Native American woman ever to serve in the U.S. Senate. After a brief time in the Minnesota House, she was chosen by Tim Walz to be his running-mate for the 2018 election. The two won two elections together and when the Governor was selected by Kamala Harris to be her running-mate, it looked for a time like Flanagan was about to be elevated to Governor, and if that happened, she would have surely been running for that job this year. The ticket Walz was on was defeated though and reportedly the relationship between him and the Lt. Governor took a hit as she was said to have basically been acting as if she were already the Governor. Walz initially was running for a third term as Governor though he would later drop out. By this point, Flanagan was a Senate candidate. Tim Walz would not endorse a candidate in the Senate primary, but his wife Gwen offered public support to Flanagan's opponent Angie Craig.

 

A native of Arkansas, Craig was elected to the U.S. House in 2018, the year Flanagan was part of the winning statewide ticket. She had narrowly lost a race for the seat in 2016, then defeated the freshman Republican incumbent in a rematch by six points. Craig then won a couple of close reelections until an easier victory in 2024. She is the first openly gay member of Congress from Minnesota and was the first gay mother to serve in Congress. In 2023, she threw hot coffee at an elevator assailant in her Washington D.C. apartment and managed to escape. While Craig had a distinctly left of center voting record, she was seen as a more pragmatic candidate than Flanagan.

 

When the primary race started, the well-funded Craig might have been considered the frontrunner but polls were mostly showing a lead for Flanagan. Both women rolled out endorsements, with several prominent gay Democrats backing Craig, but progressives nationally and in Minnesota rallied to Flanagan. She would also eventually receive the endorsement of the retiring Senator Smith. Issues such as support for Israel divided the candidates, as it has been dividing Democrats more in general and some polls showed a horse race going down the stretch. However, it would not wind up close. Flanagan won 59-39. The left is doing pretty well in many state's primaries this cycle and that was definitely the case in Minnesota. It was also another example of how U.S. House Members, who have also been seeing incumbents lose primaries more often than normal this year, have been struggling in Democrat primaries for higher office in 2026.

 

Craig probably would have gotten more votes in a general election than Flanagan will but that might not matter too much in the end. It is possible that Democrats will have to exert some more financial resources to ensure this victory though. It is also worth noting that Senator Amy Klobuchar is the favorite to win the Governorship this year and she will get to appoint her replacement. In some ways, the second place candidate Craig would make sense (which would probably even give her seniority over Flanagan in theory) but after suffering a 20 point primary loss, Klobuchar may just look elsewhere.

 

The Republican field would feature nine candidates, none of whom had won a statewide or Congressional election previously.  For a time it looked like David Hann, a former State Senate Minority Leader and state party chair would be the establishment choice, but he dropped out in April. There was some fear that Republicans would once again nominate Royce White as they did in 2024. Coming of a primary loss for the state's bluest Congressional district two years earlier, White had garnered support in a Senate race by right-wing activists and his fellow conspiracy theorists and won a low attention multi-candidate primary. He then took about 41 percent in losing to Klobuchar, a sign of nothing else of the polarized political environment that he did was well as he did. White, an African-American candidate, had a pretty clear history of engaging in antisemitic rhetoric, had legal issues in his youth, and had talked about being bipolar. His mental health issues came into play during his very brief NBA career, where he never scored a point, made an assist, or secured a rebound but did commit sevearl fouls. In any event, the most recent U.S. Senate nominee of his party only took third place this year, with 11 percent of the vote, though he was supported by defeated Gubernatorial candidate Mike Lindell. White has now apparently both declared his Presidential candidacy for 2028 and his intention to enter the WNBA Draft in an attempt to troll the female league for the kind of cultural issues the right is big on these days. I theorize that at the age of 35, Royce White would only be a middling player in the WNBA.

 

The second place finisher with 24 percent was former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze who had won the endorsement of the state party at a convention dominated by conservative activists. The winner of the primary though with a 52 percent majority was another non-traditional candidate who also was associated with the world of sports. Former journalist Michele Tafoya, whose father was Hispanic came to Minnesota from her native California to work in sports broadcasting. Eventually, Tafoya's career went national and she was a prominent NFL sideline reporter. She walked away from that field a few years ago to pursue other opportunities and started speaking out about her political beliefs. If elected, she would be the first Latina Republican to serve in the Senate. In talking about the state's politics this year, it also has to be mentioned that the Gubernatorial nominee for Republicans is a biracial African-American woman and that both Senate nominees here are biracial women.

 

All things considered, Republicans probably got a break by Tafoya's win as compared to what might have been otherwise. That is why the NRSC supported her as soon as she became a relative late entry to the race. In the past, the candidate had taken some positions that might have her labeled as a moderate Republican on social issues, but Tafoya also seems to be struggling to put distance between herself and Donald Trump. Perhaps she is not quite realizing that the primary is now over. She has recently talked about how high gas prices should be viewed as sort of a small price to pay to back the military, as it all relates to the war with Iran. The former prime time television personality also does not seem to be totally ready for prime time in a political sense. She claimed in an interview that almost 30 percent of Californians were homeless. Had she really given that statement the proper thought?  She was probably confused with the statistic that 30 percent of the nation's homeless are in the most populous state of California. The issue of women in sports and the transgender participation controversy will also clearly be something that Tafoya focuses on. It is an issue that many Democrats find themselves on the wrong side of the public on, but if that is the main thing Republicans want to talk about in elections, they have some fundamental problems to begin with.

 

Tafoya may be looking to go the length of the field with not much time left in this race, but there are definitely pockets of Republicans in Minnesota. The party will try to tag Flanagan for her position in the beleaguered Walz Administration and especially for being too far to the left and even arguably favorable to socialist positions on some issues, although she herself does not claim to be one. Some of the early polls are showing a lead of only five points for Flanagan, which is why I am only calling this as "Leans Democrat" for now. I would not all be surprised if the Democrat extends the advantage a bit more. To use a final football analogy, Craig probably would be on pace to defeat Tafoya by at least a Touchdown and a Field Goal while Flanagan might have to settle for a Touchdown and a Two Point Conversion.

 

 

Senate races predicted thus far: 

 7 D (3 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Leans, 1 Tossup)

10 R (2 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup)

 

Senate total predicted thus far:

41 D (34 holdover, 3 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Leans, 1 Tossup) 

41 R (31 holdover, 2 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup)