Michele Tafoya Wins Minnesota GOP Senate Primary Without Trump's Endorsement or Party Backing

Michele Tafoya, the former NFL sideline reporter turned conservative commentator, won Minnesota's Republican Senate primary on Tuesday, August 11, according to the New York Post. She took roughly 51% of the vote with about a fifth of ballots counted, beating former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze at 22% and ex-NBA player Royce White at 9%.

Tafoya pulled this off without the two endorsements that usually decide Republican primaries these days. President Trump stayed out of the Senate race entirely. And Minnesota Republicans, at their party convention in May, endorsed Schwarze over her, according to the Post.

She did have the National Republican Senatorial Committee behind her, the establishment's national campaign arm. The state party wanted a first-time candidate with military credentials, while NRSC money and Tafoya's name recognition from over a decade calling NFL games for ABC, ESPN and NBC won out anyway.

Tafoya spent years on Vikings and Big Ten broadcasts out of Minneapolis radio station KFAN before CBS hired her in 1994. She's since become a familiar voice in conservative media, and she leaned into that outsider positioning during the campaign, casting herself as someone who can flip a Senate seat Democrats have held since Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar's era.

Her platform: mandatory minimum sentences for fraud convictions, deporting migrants who steal taxpayer money, opposition to abolishing ICE, support for the SAVE Act's voter ID requirements for federal elections, and keeping men out of women's sports. "Minnesota is in play," she wrote on X the day of the primary, calling on voters to "defeat far-left socialist Democrats in November."

The seat is open because Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat, announced in February she wouldn't seek a second full term. That set off a crowded scramble on both sides. Fox9 reported nine total Republican candidates competed in the primary alongside Tafoya, Schwarze and White.

On the Democratic side, the primary pitted Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan against U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, according to Fox9's coverage of Minnesota's ballot. That contest is part of a broader pattern this primary season. The PBS NewsHour, citing the Associated Press, noted that progressive challengers have been on a winning streak against establishment Democrats stretching back through primary upsets in New York City and Colorado this summer and a high-profile Michigan Senate primary win on August 4.

Minnesota wasn't voting alone Tuesday. Connecticut Democrats decided whether Gov. Ned Lamont wins a third term against progressive state Rep. Josh Elliott, a race where Lamont, a wealthy former cable entrepreneur, put $9.5 million of his own money into the campaign, dwarfing Elliott's roughly $3.8 million in public financing, according to PBS/AP. Wisconsin and Vermont also held primaries the same day, and South Carolina Republicans held a primary in their U.S. Senate race.

Minnesota's governor's race saw its own three-way fight among Republicans. Fox9 reported the GOP primary featured party-endorsed candidate Kendall Qualls, Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who had Trump's endorsement. That governor's race is open for the first time since 2018 after Gov. Tim Walz said he wouldn't seek a third term.

Tafoya's 51% figure was reported with only about one-fifth of ballots counted, according to the Post's own account, so that margin could shift as more votes come in, though her lead was described as decisive enough for the outlet to call the race.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination between Craig and Flanagan will face Tafoya in a state that hasn't sent a Republican to the Senate since 2002.