Flanagan, Tafoya face off for open U.S. Senate seat

Peggy Flanagan and Michele Tafoya are locked in a closely watched fight for Minnesota's open U.S. Senate seat as voters head to the polls Tuesday, a contest that could help decide which party controls the chamber.^[1]

The two first-time Senate contenders top a four-way ballot that also includes independent Marisa Simonetti and Libertarian Rebecca Whiting, with returns expected to begin rolling in after polls close statewide at 8 p.m. Central.^[1]

The race opened when Democratic Sen. Tina Smith announced she would retire at the end of her term, turning what had long been considered a safe Democratic seat into a priority battleground for both national parties. Democrats enter the night needing to secure four key races overall to keep control of the Senate, putting added pressure on Flanagan, the state's Democratic-Farmer-Labor lieutenant governor, to hold Minnesota while Republicans look to Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter and conservative media personality, to engineer an upset.

Public polling underscored how competitive the contest had become. A SurveyUSA poll in mid-October showed Flanagan inching ahead after earlier surveys found the race essentially tied, prompting the nonpartisan Cook Political Report to shift its rating from "likely Democrat" to the more cautious "lean Democrat." That move reflected both tightening margins in Minnesota and a volatile national map where Republicans see multiple pickup opportunities and Democrats are defending incumbents in several swing states.

In the closing stretch, national politics pushed even more sharply into the race when former President Donald Trump endorsed Tafoya, offering her a boost with core Republican voters while complicating her efforts to court moderates. Flanagan's campaign quickly seized on the endorsement in advertising and stump speeches to cast Tafoya as aligned with Trump's brand of politics, even as Tafoya publicly downplayed the backing and emphasized her independence from any one figure. The dynamic added another layer of polarization to a race already framed as a test of whether Minnesota will remain reliably blue at the federal level or move closer to the battleground status of its Upper Midwest neighbors.

Third-party candidates Simonetti and Whiting have focused on issues such as government spending, civil liberties, and discontent with the two major parties, but neither has registered significant support in public polling. Their presence on the ballot, however, introduces uncertainty in a contest that could be decided at the margins, especially if the final result is as tight as surveys suggested heading into Election Day.

1. FOX 9