WASHINGTON – Gov. Peggy Flanagan was declared the winner in the contest for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat after a bitter campaign against Michele Tafoya that often turned personal.
“You just beat Donald Trump again and you know what? America did too,” Flanagan said in her acceptance speech.
Flanagan said Minnesotans were the first to begin to demand change with their resistance to Operation Metro Surge. “When a president sent thugs to the state, you sent his private army packing,” she said, to sporadic cheers of “Peggy, Peggy, Peggy.”
Flanagan, who credits her progressive ideology to the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, will be the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. The Democrat is Ojibwe and a member of the White Earth Nation.
When she cast her vote in her hometown of St. Louis Park on Tuesday, Flanagan said, “My hope is that there are young Native people all across Indian Country who see that if Auntie Peggy can do it, they can do it too.”
Democrats capitalized on voter discontent on election night to take control of the U.S. House, capturing many more seats than they needed to become the majority in the chamber, which the GOP maintains now by a slim, three-vote margin.
Democrats also flipped the Senate, where they needed to pick up more than the four seats they needed, flipping seats in “red” states like Iowa, Kansas, Texas and South Carolina.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar was declared the victor in the race for retiring Gov. Tim Walz and Democrats appeared to be gaining state House and Senate seats Tuesday night.
Tafoya was quick to call Flanagan to concede the race. “The voters spoke and we are going to respect their votes,” Tafoya said.
But she said she would continue to criticize Democrats over the fraud scandal.
“One thing that we did do in this race is we made it very clear that there should be consequences when you deceive the people of the state, when you rob the people of the state, when you do not serve the people of the state,” Tafoya said.
“We didn’t see those consequences in the way that we wanted to tonight but we are going to continue to send that message,” she added. “We are going to continue to hold people accountable, that’s what we are going to do here in Minnesota.”
Flanagan is expected to continue the progressive philosophy of Smith, the woman she is replacing, but will likely differ in tone and style. Smith is known for her witty and sardonic posts on social media. Flanagan, who has deep roots in grassroots organizing, will likely take an empathetic approach to legislating.
That grassroots organizing experience may have helped Flanagan’s campaign. On Tuesday the lieutenant governor said her campaign had knocked on 2.6 million doors.
Janet Burmeister, a rural Faribault voter, said she supported Flanagan because of “the way she stood up against ICE ” during Operation Metro Surge.
She and her son, Noah Embretson, wanted a senator who would push back against Trump. They said they didn’t trust Tafoya to do the job. “I think (Flanagan is) going to be on the side of holding our current administration accountable,” Embretson said.
Like Smith, Flanagan hopes to sit on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Tafoya, a former sportscaster who launched a political blog and hosted a radio show after leaving the NFL, cast herself as a political outsider, and independent of both parties, even as she had espoused most of President Donald Trump’s policies and shown sympathy for the J6 rioters.
Tafoya was also encouraged to run and break the GOP’s 20-year shutout of all statewide offices by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRCC).
She relentlessly attacked Flanagan for being a member of Gov. Tim Walz’s administration and therefore responsible for fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs. And she tried to distance herself from Trump.
“This race is between Peggy Flanagan and me,” Tafoya posted on X on Monday. “And only one of us let $9 billion fly out the door. I’m an outsider, and I’ve never held political office. When I get to Washington, I intend to right the wrongs that Peggy Flanagan and Tim Walz have done to our state.”
Flanagan, meanwhile, was single minded in tying Tafoya to Trump, insisting her political rival would “rubber stamp” the president’s policies.
Flanagan’s victory comes as voters in Minnesota and across the nation are frustrated with the war in Iran and an escalating cost of living.
“We just need a shakeup,” said Kris Kuznia after he cast his ballot in Brooklyn Park. “There’s a war going on. That’s a pretty big [issue] for me.”
After casting her vote at the Marcy Arts Elementary school in Minnesota, Savannah Tanner had other concerns.
“We want ICE out of Minneapolis,” Tanner said. “Affordable housing for people, just having housing available in general … student debt relief. Those are the issues that come to mind first.”
Claire Carlson, Maddie Robinson and Shay Scanlan contributed to this story.
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