Michele Tafoya: How convenient is this? Minnesota Republican Senate candidate Michele Tafoya talks about her opponent Peggy Flanagan and criticizes her political record. Tafoya says Flanagan “can’t get a promotion” and questions the prospect of advancing his political career on “Fox News @ Night.” NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! “This historic fraud happened on his watch, and all of a sudden, he’s taking care of Medicaid and SNAP? Sell it to someone else, Peggy.” With this debate response to Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan’s protests of concern about access to benefits for the very poor, Republican Senate candidate Michele Tafoya sealed her status as “Rookie of the Year” in American politics. and he paired it with a deft attack on Flanagan’s greatest vulnerability: Flanagan’s apprenticeship as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s lieutenant governor during the wave of fraud that swept through Minnesota after Covid-era “look the other way” policies became a feature, not a bug, in Minnesota’s vast system of “safety net” programs. GOP RIVAL EXPOSES CLEAR CONTRADICTION A federal prosecutor estimated the amount of fraud in Minnesota spending at no less than $9 billion; that’s a “b” as in “billion.” That’s a remarkable sum considering the Gopher State’s population of less than 6 million souls and an annual budget of about $67 billion. Wasting an amount equivalent to about 15% of a state’s budget on thieves and scammers is astonishing. That level of corruption forced Walz to abandon his planned re-election campaign and he is now pursuing Flanagan in his head-to-head campaign with Tafoya for the Senate. fear of Somali-American youth gangs and the kind of violence that recently shocked suburban Twin Cities voters when a shooting occurred at an Eden Prairie High School homecoming game. Eden Prairie is an affluent suburban city of approximately 65,000 residents. Fewer than 3,000 Somali-Americans live in Eden Prairie, but the Oct. 2 gang shooting at Aerie Stadium, during Eden Prairie High School’s game against Minnetonka High School, shocked voters across the state. 100-SHOOTED SOMALI GANG GUN BATTLE SHAKES MINNESOTA AS SHERIFF WARNS ‘WE’RE IN TROUBLE’ Tafoya was quick to point out that everyone arrested in the incident — which left two young men injured and the crowd quickly evacuated from the canceled game — was out on bail within days. That shooting plus fraud have dominated media coverage of the Senate race in the Gopher State this month. Tafoya’s decisive line – “Sell it to someone else, Peggy” – was a wake-up call to the electorate. Even longtime Democrats in Minnesota are looking around their beloved state and can’t understand why it has become embroiled in corruption and crime. A SLEEPING GOP CANDIDATE PUTS BLUE INDEPENDENCE STATE AT PLAY AS A FRAUD SCANDAL SHADOWS DEMISTS Tafoya would have been a good candidate in any cycle. She’s great for a state midterm campaign when her matchup is among the most watched in the country. The polls in the race are within the “margin of error,” which, to remind readers, means that the pollsters conducting the polls recognize that it is a toss-up. There may also be a silent, and therefore hidden from pollsters, anti-establishment vote lurking beyond downtown Minneapolis, and the very liberal Democratic-Farmer-Labor (“DFL”) Party, Flanagan’s brand, is the establishment in Minnesota. THE NINE KEY RACES THAT WILL DECIDE WHO CONTROLS THE SENATE AND WHERE IT IS FOUND The DFL is not the DSA, but Flanagan is definitely “DSA adjacent.” She is as “awake” as “awake” can be. An obvious “reveal”: Flanagan has repeatedly called Israel’s battle against Hamas in Gaza, which was triggered by the terrorist invasion and massacre of October 7, a “genocide,” which is not just a smear but an exceptionally stupid smear. The “genocide” slogan is popular among radicals who chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” but it is an “idiotic wind,” as the Nobel laureate bard from Minnesota put it. Bob Dylan. Lobbing that accusation against the Jewish state should guarantee whoever utters it an immediate exit from American politics, not a six-year seat in the most powerful legislative chamber on the planet. WEAPONING THE BURDEN OF GENOCIDE FEEDS AN INCREASINGLY DANGEROUS ANTISEMITISM Flanagan is not the most radical Democratic candidate of the 2026 election cycle. That’s clearly Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. But Flanagan is tied with Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson for the “I’ll never win the spelling bee” title and Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico for gold in this fall’s “strange” Olympics. (That’s very appropriate since Walz popularized calling then-Senator and now Vice President JD Vance “weirdo” in the 2024 campaign.) Meanwhile, the very smart, very telegenic and very professional and prepared Tafoya has worked and worked with all the crowds, large and small, throughout Minnesota with the simple and direct appeal that Minnesota voters deserve better than the mess that Walz and Flanagan have left the state in after eight years of unfortunate indifference to the biggest story of fraud in the nation, marching alongside a spiral of violence. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP Minnesota elects Republicans, but not often. Tafoya is not in the lead, but he is certainly very close to pulling off the biggest upset of 2026. Why? Because sometimes even liberals get tired of the left when it imposes enormous costs on their lives and the safety of their children and grandchildren. Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday afternoons from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh brings Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast at over 400 affiliates nationwide and on every online streaming platform where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6 pm ET. A native of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a professor of law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American newspaper, authored a dozen books, and moderated two dozen Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-2016 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump during his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the main story that will drive your radio and television show today. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT
