Minnesota’s open Senate race has shifted from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic as fraud fallout, immigration enforcement and a probe of Rep. Ilhan Omar tighten the contest for Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
Forecasters now treat the race to succeed retiring Sen. Tina Smith as competitive. Republican Michele Tafoya, a retired broadcaster, has closed the gap on Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, and recent polls show a single-digit fight in a state that has not elected a Republican senator since 2002.
Just The News reported that the Cook Political Report moved the Minnesota Senate race from “likely” to “lean” Democratic, one of the few major Senate contests this cycle drifting toward the GOP. The change lands while early voting is underway and both campaigns make final pitches to undecided voters.
RealClearPolitics’ aggregate had Flanagan ahead by roughly two points as of the latest snapshot in the reporting. An InsiderAdvantage survey of 1,200 likely voters fielded Sept. 28, 29 put Flanagan at 46% and Tafoya at 45%, inside the margin of error. A Quantus Insights poll earlier in September showed Flanagan 49% to Tafoya’s 45%.
Prediction markets still favored Flanagan heavily, with Kalshi and Polymarket assigning her roughly 84% to 86% odds. Yet the polling and the rating change have forced Democrats to defend ground they once treated as safe.
The open seat itself is rare terrain. Minnesota last voted Republican for president in 1972. Kamala Harris carried the state by about four points in 2024; Joe Biden won it by seven in 2020. Democrats have held the governorship for 16 years. That long run of one-party control is now central to the Republican case.
Republicans have hammered the Feeding Our Future scandal, a COVID-era scheme built on fraudulent claims for child nutrition programs. The price tag cited in reporting runs from $250 million to as high as $1 billion for taxpayers. The Justice Department probe, which began under the Biden administration, has produced dozens of indictments, including members of Minnesota’s Somali community.
Tafoya has tied Flanagan directly to the failure under Gov. Tim Walz. She told interviewers the only real political consequence so far was Walz stepping away from a third-term bid, while Flanagan seeks a promotion.
Michele Tafoya said:
"Why has no one been fired? The only real consequence we’ve seen is that Tim Walz was convinced to step out of his third term gubernatorial race because there was no way he was going to survive this. But Peggy Flanagan’s asking for a promotion."
Flanagan has tried to separate herself. In a CBS News interview earlier in October she said she shared public anger and backed tougher tools.
Peggy Flanagan said:
"I would say this: I am incredibly angry with the fraud as most Minnesotans are as well, but I have supported the independent Office of Inspector General and harsher penalties."
Walz’s office has previously said the governor “worked for years to crack down on fraud and asked the state Legislature for more authority to take aggressive action.” That defense has not quieted the accountability argument. University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs told Newsweek the scandal has clearly hurt Flanagan.
Larry Jacobs said:
"That’s clearly tarnished her reputation, and her opponent comes back to it constantly."
Jacobs added there is “no doubt” the race is competitive because Flanagan has struggled to shake the fraud backlash. Hamline University professor David Schultz framed the contest as competing stories about who owns the mess.
David Schultz said:
"What’s going on here in the state is dueling narratives... Republicans are talking about Walz and fraud, and the Democrats are talking about Trump and fraud and corruption. The question becomes again, given her close association to Walz and his low approval ratings, how is it tainting her?"
That association is the core problem for Democrats. Flanagan is the sitting lieutenant governor. Voters who want a verdict on state government can deliver it through her. The fraud failures under Walz have already forced hard questions about whether long Democratic control produced weak oversight rather than clean government.
Kevin Parsneau, a political science professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato, said the scandal handed Republicans a culturally potent issue in a state that dislikes the smell of bad government.
Parsneau said the fraud episode has “given Republicans an issue to run on that resonates with Minnesota’s political culture that has a distaste for anything that smells of bad government.” He also noted the 2026 cycle carries anti-incumbent energy that can help a candidate without a long political record.
Tafoya has used that outsider lane. In the third quarter of 2026 she raised $4.3 million to Flanagan’s $3.8 million, the only competitive Senate race in that period where the Republican candidate outraised the Democrat. Money does not equal votes, but the haul signals donors see a real shot.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted the race from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic on October 14, citing underwhelming poll performance. The Washington Examiner described the Cook move as a blow to Flanagan and one of the rare forecaster shifts favoring Republicans this cycle.
National Republicans are watching every opening. Senate leaders have already told their conference they face a record number of toss-up races and still see a path to the majority. Minnesota was not supposed to be on that list. The rating change puts it there.
Immigration enforcement has been another flash point. Minnesota was described as an epicenter of stepped-up federal operations earlier in the year, including Operation Metro Surge. In January, federal immigration officers fatally shot two American citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, amid protests in Minneapolis.
Schultz said the surge likely “radicalized” Democrats and helped Flanagan beat moderate Rep. Angie Craig in the primary by energizing the party’s base. Rural and greater Minnesota voters, by contrast, have shown more support for enforcement. That split maps onto Flanagan’s broader problem.
Schultz also said Flanagan’s progressive positions make her “hugely unpopular” outside the Twin Cities. She needs heavy turnout in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro, which he estimated at about 56% of the statewide vote and which leans liberal, while holding her own in greater Minnesota. Bernie Sanders has endorsed her. She has embraced abolishing ICE, Medicare for All, and calls to impeach Trump if Democrats regain majorities. Jacobs noted research showing candidates seen as ideologically extreme can lose six to 10 points of support.
The federal probe of Rep. Ilhan Omar added another layer. Earlier in October, agents searched her Washington-area home. Reporting cited by Newsweek, drawing on the New York Times, said the warrant listed potential immigration offenses including false statements and fraud in immigration paperwork, plus a general conspiracy charge. Omar denounced the inquiry on X as an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
Schultz suggested the probe could “mobilize” Democrats and may have “boomeranged” if the intent was to damage the party. Jacobs said the Omar matter “deserves attention” but does not think it is driving the Senate race. Tafoya, appearing on Fox News, said she is “running in a different race” while noting public concern about the allegations and arguing single-party rule in Minnesota “led to this fraud.”
The pattern is familiar: accountability fights over fraud and border enforcement collide with progressive branding that plays well in Minneapolis and poorly in the rest of the state. Democrats already face deepening party divisions nationally; a late scare in Minnesota would compound the strain.
Parsneau argued Republicans gain ground “to the extent that Democrats connect them to the Trump administration,” and that Tafoya, like other prominent Republicans, carries that vulnerability. At the same time, he said the fraud issue and anti-status-quo mood give the GOP “a better chance than we would otherwise expect given the conventional wisdom that midterms are a referendum on the president.”
Schultz put the choice for voters in plain terms: is the referendum on Trump in Washington, or on Walz and the fraud record in St. Paul? The data, he said, is not yet clear enough to parse. That uncertainty is exactly why Cook and Sabato moved the race. A seat once parked in Likely Democratic territory is now contested ground.
The fraud scandal has kept Minnesota’s open Senate seat in play for a reason. Taxpayers watched hundreds of millions vanish through a nutrition program. Dozens of indictments followed. The sitting governor’s lieutenant is now asking for a Senate promotion while the state’s longest stretch of Democratic executive control faces a direct verdict at the ballot box.
Flanagan still leads in most surveys and holds a structural edge in the Twin Cities. Tafoya has the outsider brand, the fundraising quarter, and a simple accountability message. Forecasters no longer treat the outcome as a formality. In a midterm defined by fatigue with incumbents and disgust at wasted public money, that alone is a warning Democrats cannot ignore.
When one party runs a state for 16 years, loses track of hundreds of millions in fraud, and then asks voters for another promotion, it should not be shocked when the race tightens.