Republicans have a strong chance to gain a Senate seat in a historically blue state, according to a noted election expert.
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NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki says Minnesota’s massive social-services fraud scandal could become a decisive late issue in the state’s unexpectedly competitive Senate race between Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Republican Michele Tafoya.
Appearing Wednesday on NBC’s “TODAY,” Kornacki highlighted Minnesota as a potential Republican pickup opportunity as the November 3 midterms enter their final stretch.
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Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate election in Minnesota since 2002, but recent polling shows Tafoya running within a few points of Flanagan in the contest to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith.
“What they think is working in their favor here is there’s a state scandal there about Medicaid fraud,” Kornacki said, pointing to the controversy that has engulfed Minnesota government during Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s administration.
Kornacki noted that Flanagan has served as Walz’s lieutenant governor throughout the administration and said Tafoya has made that connection central to her closing argument against the Democratic nominee.
“There does seem to be a tie within the state that might be working against Democrats,” Kornacki said.
Minnesota has faced a series of high-profile fraud cases involving government-funded programs, with dozens of defendants convicted in schemes involving hundreds of millions of dollars and questions mounting over whether state agencies reacted quickly enough to warning signs.
The best-known case involved Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of a sprawling scheme involving roughly $250 million in federal child-nutrition funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tafoya has repeatedly argued that Flanagan should bear political responsibility because she spent eight years as the second-ranking official in the Walz administration, while Flanagan has maintained that oversight of the affected programs was not part of her responsibilities as lieutenant governor.
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The issue produced one of the sharpest exchanges during the candidates’ October 16 debate, when Flanagan said Walz had acknowledged responsibility for failures in state oversight and conceded that officials should have acted sooner.
Asked whether she personally accepted responsibility, Flanagan said the governor had been clear that “the buck stops with him,” while pointing to specific policy areas where she had taken the lead.
Tafoya immediately challenged that defense, arguing that Flanagan had spent years presenting herself as an influential partner in the Walz administration but was distancing herself from its failures as she sought promotion to the Senate.
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“This historic fraud happened under her watch,” Tafoya said during the debate, accusing Flanagan of attempting to escape accountability for problems that developed while she was lieutenant governor.
Polling suggests the race remains close, although Flanagan continues to hold a narrow advantage rather than Tafoya taking the lead.
The RealClearPolitics average through October 21 showed Flanagan at 46.5% and Tafoya at 43.3%, a 3.2-point Democratic advantage, while a Rasmussen poll conducted October 20-21 showed Flanagan ahead 48% to 45% among 1,182 likely voters with a three-point margin of error.
A Star Tribune/KARE 11 poll conducted October 5-7 similarly found Flanagan leading 47% to 43%, with 9% undecided and a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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That survey also found evidence that the fraud controversy was influencing some voters, although other issues — including views of President Donald Trump — were helping Flanagan maintain her advantage.
The contest has attracted additional attention because Minnesota has historically been difficult territory for Republicans, with the party last winning a statewide election in 2006 and a Senate race in 2002.
Tafoya, a former longtime NFL sideline reporter for NBC and other networks, is seeking elected office for the first time and has built much of her campaign around government accountability, affordability and the fraud scandals.
Flanagan, meanwhile, has emphasized her experience in state government while arguing that Tafoya would support Trump’s agenda in Washington.
With Election Day less than two weeks away, Kornacki’s analysis underscores why a race that once appeared less competitive has drawn increasing national attention, with the fallout from Minnesota’s fraud scandals emerging as one of the central issues separating the two candidates.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
