Former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya enters Minnesota U.S. Senate race
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Former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya filed paperwork Tuesday to set a Minnesota U.S. Senate run in motion, giving Republicans a high-profile hopeful as they try to catapult the campaign onto the national map.
Tafoya’s campaign made a formal announcement via video and a news release on Wednesday morning. A campaign committee was set up with the Federal Elections Commission listing a Minnesota campaign office.
“Our campaign is bigger than right versus left. It’s about confidence over corruption,” Tafoya says in her campaign launch video.
In the video, Tafoya calls herself “a political outsider and a reformer with a real plan for working families.” In addition to the ongoing social services fraud cases in Minnesota, the video touches on other key GOP themes, including crime, tax cuts, immigration and restricting transgender athlete participation.
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Tafoya, who has never sought public office before, will run for a seat that’s open because U.S. Sen. Tina Smith is retiring instead of running for a new term in 2026. Democrats have held both of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seats since 2009.
The announcement immediately shakes up the race and improves the odds for Republicans, who see Minnesota as one of a few pickup targets as they defend a 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate, counting the two independents who caucus with the Democrats.
While several candidates are vying for the GOP nomination, none has the national reputation that Tafoya does. She is likely to attract donors from across the country and groups that drop millions into competitive races are sure to give Minnesota a closer look with her in the mix.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott issued a statement backing Tafoya, a key nod from the chair of the campaign arm for Senate Republicans.
“Michele is the only candidate with the common-sense leadership Minnesotans are desperately craving, and her message of safety, opportunity and prosperity would be a welcome addition to our Senate majority,” Scott said in a statement issued after her entrance.
The Democratic Senate campaign committee said in reaction that Tafoya has “far-right positions that are out of step with Minnesotans.”
U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, one of the Democrats running for the seat, slammed Tafoya as a “rubber stamp” for President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump landed his top recruit for U.S. Senate in Minnesota – Michele Tafoya,” Craig said in a video posted Wednesday. “And let me tell you, this is going to be a dog fight. “
Tafoya, 61, is a California native who relocated to Minnesota early in a sports broadcasting career. She lives in a Minneapolis suburb with her husband, who is a financial analyst.
In the 1990s, Tafoya moved to Minnesota as a Vikings and Timberwolves reporter. She quickly became a fixture as a voice and sometimes host for the Twin Cities all-sports radio station, KFAN. She parlayed that into national gigs — none bigger than her TV sideline reporting role at NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” from 2011 to 2022.
More recently, she has hosted a podcast focused on political commentary. She has been mentioned as a possible political candidate in the past but never gone ahead.
Democrats served notice they would work to tie her to President Donald Trump, who fell short in Minnesota in his three campaigns for president and whose approval rating is lagging in his present term.
Tafoya joins a crowded field on the Republican side. The roster of candidates includes: former NBA basketball player and 2024 GOP nominee Royce White; former Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann, farmer Mark York, former Navy Seal Adam Schwarze and retired Navy veteran Tom Weiler.
Hann came out with a harsh assessment of Tafoya. He highlighted past comments Tafoya made that were critical of Trump and questioned her stance on abortion, an issue that gains outsized attention among Republican convention delegates.
“Minnesota Republicans deserve better than a candidate who stabbed President Trump, the MAGA movement and pro-life Republicans in the back, and now — for political expediency’s sake — expects all to be forgotten,” Hann said in a written statement.
Democrats have also honed in on abortion, noting her appearance in commercials sponsored by Minnesota Citizens Concerned For Life that pushed back against a possible ballot measure on abortion rights.
Aside from Craig on the DFL side, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Billy Nord are also running for their party spot on November’s ballot.
In recent weeks, Tafoya has honed in on Minnesota politics in episodes of her podcast, focusing on fraud in state Medicaid programs. She’s also gone after DFL Senate candidates Flanagan and Craig over guns, fraud and what Tafoya called “identity politics” that she regards as too prevalent on the left.
She has also sharply criticized Minnesota Democratic leaders over their resistance to Trump administration’s immigration actions in the state recently. The immigration agent surge has stirred tensions, protests and death of an observer, Renee Macklin Good, earlier this month.
"How did we get to this place? How did this environment get created where people feel it's their duty to go put their cars or their bodies in front of federal law enforcement?” Tafoya told Fox News in an interview. “And I would contend that Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis have ginned this up."
The sports-to-politics pipeline has had mixed results over the years.
Some prominent former athletes or coaches who have made the leap over the years include: former NFL wide receiver Steve Largent who served Oklahoma in Congress; ex-collegiate coaches Tommy Tuberville, now an Alabama U.S. senator, and Tom Osborne, a legendary Nebraska coach who went onto a congressional career in that state.
Among the most successful were past NFL quarterback Jack Kemp, who served in Congress, a presidential cabinet and was on a presidential ticket, and former NBA player Bill Bradley, who won a U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey and was a presidential contender later on.
Notable disappointments include: ex-NFL running back Herschel Walker, who played for the Vikings and other teams and who lost a U.S. Senate race in Georgia; Matt Birk, a former pro football lineman, fell short as a lieutenant governor candidate in Minnesota; past MVP baseball player Steve Garvey, who was defeated last year in a U.S. Senate race in California.
In the sports broadcasting ranks, former President Ronald Reagan called baseball games prior to a career in acting that preceded his entry into politics.
