Two photos combined of Michele Tafoya and Peggy Flanagan.
U.S. Senate race: Republican nominee Michele Tafoya, left, and DFL candidate and Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, right, face off in a debate on MPR News on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (Left: Ellen Schmidt / Associated Press. Right: Courtesy of the candidate)
Alex Derosier
Alex Derosier
Voters on Tuesday will decide whether to send Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan or Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter, to Washington as Minnesota’s next U.S. senator.
Flanagan, who describes herself as a “progressive champion,” won a bruising Democratic-Farmer-Labor primary against moderate U.S. Rep. Angie Craig earlier this year and now faces a Republican who has also worked to present herself as a moderate.
Tafoya entered the race with a reputation as a “pro-choice” Republican who had co-authored a 2022 open letter urging President Donald Trump not to seek a second term. In the primary, she defeated the GOP-endorsed conservative candidate, Adam Schwarze, who took issue with Tafoya’s views on abortion.
Tafoya’s past questioning of the president, however, didn’t stop him from endorsing her last month — even in the wake of his administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year.
When asked about the endorsement, Tafoya has neither embraced nor rebuked Trump, telling reporters her campaign is about “including people from all along the political spectrum” and turning attention to Flanagan’s record as lieutenant governor.
The endorsement has been something of a gift to Flanagan, who has worked to portray Tafoya as a “rubber stamp” for a president not popular in Minnesota. The lieutenant governor has accused Tafoya of “trying to reinvent herself” for the wider electorate.
Tafoya, meanwhile, has scrutinized Flanagan’s record serving with DFL Gov. Tim Walz, whose second term was plagued by accusations of mishandling large-scale fraud in federally funded state programs.
When pressed on the matter, Flanagan has continued to deny responsibility for the Walz administration’s response to fraud, though she has served with the governor for eight years.
Asked about whether she had any ownership of the fraud in a debate on Minnesota Public Radio, Flanagan said Walz had been “very clear that the buck stops with him” and policy areas like paid family and medical leave and universal school meals were her focus in office.
The race to replace Democratic Minnesota U.S. Sen. Tina Smith is not seen as the country’s most competitive, but some polls have found it to be closer than the race for governor.
Still, Tafoya has failed to secure the same levels of outside support as GOP gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth.
In fact, since Tafoya became the GOP nominee in August, outside groups have spent around $1.5 million or so to oppose Flanagan, compared to $9.4 million against DFL gubernatorial candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Flanagan, whose outside support was dwarfed by Craig’s in the primary, has received about $2.8 million from outside groups.
For comparison, spending in the country’s most competitive Senate races — such as in Texas and Ohio — has topped the $100 million mark. Republicans currently control 53 seats in the Senate, and Democrats hope to gain at least four seats to take the majority.
Like the other top races for statewide office, the candidates can’t escape questions about their ties to Trump or Walz. Still, addressing rising living costs tops both candidates’ list of stated priorities.
Here’s what they’ve said about top issues:
Tafoya initially defended what she called a “law-and-order” mission of Operation Metro Surge by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and criticized anti-ICE protesters as “violent.”
Trump’s immigration crackdown had problems under the direction of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Tafoya said, but improved after “border czar” Tom Homan took over.
“America should be a nation of immigration and also a nation of law and order,” Tafoya said. “Those two things go hand in hand. The loss of Renee Good and Alex Pretti is devastating. I did not like the way that that ICE rollout was handled by Kristi Noem (and) she was appropriately fired.”
Flanagan has supported “ripping ICE apart and holding them accountable” and has called the agency “lawless” and “out of control.”
“It should be replaced by a system that absolutely has secure borders, that is grounded in public safety for everyone, dignity, due process, humanity, and a pathway to citizenship for folks who have been here who are law-abiding,” she said in an October debate.
The Social Security trust fund is projected to run out of money by 2032, and federal lawmakers will be forced to take action if they want to preserve benefits at their current levels.
Tafoya hasn’t said what she would do to keep Social Security afloat, though she supports removing taxes on benefit payments.
Flanagan supports the Social Security Expansion Act, which would tax wage income above $250,000 to support continued payments for up to seven decades.
Flanagan has expressed support for single-payer healthcare through “Medicare For All,” a government-run health plan.
Tafoya describes the plan as an expensive “pipe dream” and wants to preserve private options.
Flanagan said she would reject future Supreme Court nominees from Trump and back “court reform,” including expanding the court’s size beyond its current nine members.
Tafoya said she would evaluate nominees as they came and described expanding the size of the Supreme Court as a goal of the “far left.”
“Conservative judges, strict constructionist judges, I think are healthy for America,” she said of her preference in nominees.
Trump appointments created a six-seat conservative majority on the court, which led to the end of federal abortion rights protections when justices overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Tafoya, who has described herself as a “pro-choice” Republican, said she believed abortion should be allowed up to the third month of pregnancy.
Tafoya, who is endorsed by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, released a plan to address youth gang violence following recent shootings involving Somali gangs. She criticized Flanagan for not specifically “naming” Somali gangs as a problem.
Flanagan said she was supporting the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s efforts to develop a regional strategy to combat gang violence and had avoided ethnic characterizations of the problem.
Violent crime became an issue in the election earlier in October despite declining violent crime rates in Minnesota.
Tafoya has said some tariffs are necessary to put the U.S. on equal footing with trade partners who engage in what she calls unfair practices.
Flanagan, however, has blamed Trump’s tariffs for rising prices and wants Congress to end the current administration’s “trade wars.”
Flanagan has described Israel’s ongoing military action in Gaza as “genocide” against Palestinians and supports the end of arms sales to Israel.
Tafoya disputes Flanagan’s genocide characterization and describes Israel as an ally of the U.S.
Both candidates support an end to the current war in Iran, which has driven a spike in global fuel prices.
Flanagan has criticized Tafoya for initially backing the war and only recently reversing her position as it started to affect the cost of living.
Flanagan wants more federal regulation and independent inspection of data centers and has expressed concerns about the potential dangers posed by artificial intelligence.
“I don’t want to sound like, you know, Sarah Connor from ‘The Terminator,’ but I do think that we have to be very clear that there are catastrophic risks that AI poses,” she said in a debate with Tafoya. “I think we need an independent body that will regulate AI companies.”
Flanagan and Tafoya agreed that local communities should have a say in whether data centers are built, though Tafoya opposed major regulations and said artificial intelligence development is key to America’s innovative edge.
“When it comes to data centers, I think two words resolve this debate: local control,” Tafoya said. “I will not be for top-down mandates on data centers.”