MINNEAPOLIS — It’s been 20 years since a Republican won a statewide race in Minnesota, but some in the party think a fraud scandal that has engulfed state government will be their ticket back to relevance in the state.
Their enthusiasm was buoyed by Tuesday’s primary, which saw former sportscaster Michele Tafoya win the Senate nomination and state House speaker Lisa Demuth win the primary for governor. Both women defeated rivals seen by some GOP strategists as too extreme for Minnesota’s left-of-center electorate.
And the newly minted GOP ticket wasted no time before hammering Democrats over the fraud. Dozens of people have been convicted of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars meant to provide food, shelter, healthcare and childcare to people in need.
“We have seen now what all of these years of single-party rule has done to this state,” Tafoya said Wednesday. “And it is mobilizing voters in a way that I think is new and refreshing and exciting. And that’s what we’re going to tap into.”
Republicans are mostly playing defense as they look to hold onto their narrow House and Senate majorities. President Donald Trump is unpopular, and voters have a negative view of the state of the economy and the country’s direction.
In the fight for Senate control, most of the competitive seats on the ballot this fall are held by Republicans and in states that Trump won by healthy margins in 2024, such as Texas and Iowa. Minnesota presents one of the GOP’s few opportunities to go on offense.
PHOTOS: Republicans see Minnesota fraud scandal as a chance to go on offense in a blue state
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee, is emerging from a contentious and expensive primary, and as the state’s No. 2 Democrat, Republicans think she’s uniquely vulnerable to attacks over fraud. Demuth faces Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has easily won other statewide races.
Republicans see an opening in Minnesota
Minnesota isn’t as blue as the GOP’s two-decade losing streak suggests.
Republicans have come close to winning in the recent past – Trump lost the state by just 1.5 points in 2016. The Legislature is nearly evenly divided, with 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans; the state House is tied and has a Republican speaker under a power-sharing agreement between the parties.
“The Republican party has just really struggled to field good candidates, to run strong campaigns, and as a result, it’s withered,” Amy Frederiksen, a Republican strategist and former minority leader in the state Senate, said in an interview before the primary.
Frederiksen said backlash to the fraud scandal gives Republican candidates a chance to reach new people. Republicans say the state’s Democratic leaders should have caught the fraud, which unfolded over years as organizations with state contracts to provide social services stole hundreds of millions of dollars through various means, including faking clients and billing for services that were never provided.
Amid the outcry, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz dropped his reelection campaign.
“There’s an opening for Republicans to make the case that even though Tim Walz isn’t running for re-election, it’s not enough to just replace Tim Walz with another Democrat,” said Brian McClung, who was deputy chief of staff for former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the last Republican to win a statewide race in Minnesota.
Still, winning GOP converts will be hard. On top of the headwinds Republicans face nationally, in Minnesota they will also face Democrats galvanized by last winter’s immigration operation in the Minneapolis metro area. Citing fraud, Trump surged federal agents into the city for an aggressive enforcement push that led to tense and deadly confrontations.
The GOP is pinning its hopes on Michele Tafoya
Tafoya has caught the attention of Republicans in Washington, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee supported her early.
A well-known sportscaster who reported from the sidelines of NFL games for years, she has a profile separate from politics and doesn’t have a lengthy voting record that Democrats can mine for ammunition to use against her.
She supports abortion rights up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, a position that put her out of step with many GOP primary voters but could help neutralize a potent Democratic line of attack.
Democrats immediately previewed their plan to beat her – they will link her to Trump.
“We are not about to give Donald Trump another loyal soldier like Michele Tafoya to take his orders and do his bidding,” Flanagan said in her victory speech Tuesday night.
Flanagan has suggested Republicans are disingenuous to focus on fraud in Minnesota when she says Trump has used the presidency to enrich himself.
“They’re going to have to answer for that corruption,” she told reporters at a campaign event last weekend.
