The US Senate seat up for election in Minnesota this year has a rambunctious history: it's currently held by the retiring former Planned Parenthood executive Tina Smith, who was appointed to the seat after Al Franken resigned over a frat-boy pratfall during the height of the #MeToo movement; Franken himself took the seat from Republican Norm Coleman after a deeply controversial 2008 recount that swuing the vote totals from a 300-vote Colman lead to 200-vote Franken victory, in an election where it was discovered over 2,000 unemancpiated felons had voted illegally.
Got all that?
The contestants in this race will be determined - sort of - in this coming weekend's state party conventions. I say "sort of" because party activists endorse their candidates at their state conventions, but the actual ballot is determined by an August primary. Pledges to honor the party endorsement and refrain from going to the primary are the source of enough sturm und drang to shame a battalion of middle school "mean girls".
We'll come back to that.
On the Republicans' side, a field of six serious candidates looks to be coming down to a 2.5-way fight between 2024 candidate, controversy magnet, and former NBA player Royce White, former Marine and Navy SEAL officer Adam Schwarze, and former CBS sideline football reporter Michelle Tafoya.
Tafoya appears to be headed for the primary while working to make a strong showing at the convention. Schwarze, who has pledged to honor the endorsement, appears to have a lead among delegates so far, judging by pledges and straw polls.
In the big straw poll that takes place in the candidates' bank accounts, Tafoya is off to an early lead:
In the crowded field of Republicans running for the open U.S. Senate seat, former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya has the lead as far as fundraising, with about $2 million raised as of March 31.
Former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze raised $1.1 million, the filings show, former NBA player Royce White about $566,000...
Schwarze is a solid conservative - always a seller among the GOP activists that go to state conventions. The activists say Tafoya is far too moderate on immigration (she favors a path to citizenship) and abortion (she echoes President Trump's position, opposing abortion after 12 weeks). Tafoya's advocates note that Minnesota's swing voters are heavily female and, polling shows, moderate on immigration and not especially disposed toward total abortion bans, for better or worse, notwithstanding the fact that with the Dobbs decision on the books, the Senate won't actually be voting on abortion policy.
It's an important race - because the GOP stands a pretty solid chance of facing a very weak DFL candidate. The race on the DFL side, as they also head into a convention this weekend, is House representative and former HR executive Angie Craig, and sitting Lieutenant Governor and lifelong "community organizer" Peggy Flanagan. :
Now - remember what I said about Minnesota's weird endorsement-then-primary process?
Back in 2018, the DFL state convention - which is dominated by activists so far to the left that Leon Trotsky may have called from the great beyond to tell them to "dial back the crazy" - endorsed ultraleft Erin Murphy for governor, radical abortion zealot Erin Maye Quade for Lieutenant Governor, and actual Communist Matthew Pelikan for Attorney General. Because Keith Ellison wasn't radical enough for them.
Ken Martin - then executive director of the DFL, today the head of the DNC - stepped in, with the DFL's vast financial resources and even bigger procedural ones, and jammed down Tim Walz - who was wearing a "Moderate" label like a meat suit left over from his time representing rural southern Minnesota in Congress - in the primary. Flanagan, at the time a House member with the most left-of-center voting record in the Legislature, was thrown in as Lieutenant Governor to make sure the progressives wouldn't bolt. Keith Ellison was part of the package, being more moderate than the endorsed candidate.
They won the primaries and went on to win two terms each.
In the meantime, Representative Craig - who has never carried her "leans-Democrat" suburban and rural district in anything close to a blowout - committed the mortal-among-progs sin of giving an attaboy to ICE for the hard work they do. Before the Metro Surge fracas.
So despite the high likelihood that Craig is likely moderate enough to appeal to Greater Minnesota voters while "progressive" enough for the typical primary voter, and is crushing it at the fundraising...:
In the bruising fight for the Democratic endorsement for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat, Rep. Angie Craig, a prodigious fundraiser, has raised about $7.8 million for her campaign, about $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2026.
Meanwhile, rival DFLer Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor, has raised nearly $4.6 million, about $1.4 million in the first quarter.
...Flanagan - with next to no organic appeal to much of anyone outside Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and a history of progressivism bordering on radicalism, is running away with the pre-convention polling:
A new poll from Public Policy Polling shows Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan with a commanding and growing lead over Congresswoman Angie Craig in the Minnesota Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The more voters learn, the wider that lead becomes.
Flanagan leads 44-33 on the initial ballot test. But after voters hear about the candidates’ records, her advantage nearly triples: Flanagan surges to 55% support while Craig falls to 25%, a 30-point margin that reflects the fundamental contrast at the heart of this race.
If you're a Republican - Schwarze or Tafoya, most likely - you are likely hitting your knees every night hoping and praying for a Flanagan candidacy.
And in Ken Martin's DFL, that would have likely meant "strap in for a primary in which Martin twists the public employee unions' arms to get Craig through the primary and onto the ballot".
But the DFL's new chair, Richard Carlbom, is a whole new leader of a party much more beholden to the ascendant far left than the one Martin led eight years ago.
I'm popping my popcorn as we speak.
