Michele Tafoya isn’t in the Senate race yet, but she’s been busy politicking on social media

WASHINGTON – Speculation about Michele Tafoya entering the race for retiring U.S. Sen. Tina Smith’s seat has heated up in the past few days, but the former sports broadcaster has been attacking Democrats vying for that seat for a while on social media.

Tafoya, who launched her own podcast after retiring from football coverage in 2022, has aligned mostly with GOP policies, though she has characterized herself as a “pro-choice conservative with libertarian leanings.”

She first indicated she might run for Smith’s seat when the Democratic senator announced her retirement in February.

“I think Minnesota is starving for a moderate Republican who doesn’t tell them that they’re going to ban abortion who is the antithesis of the Tim Walz regime,” Tafoya told WDAY Radio back then.

But Tafoya never got into the race, which attracted Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Republicans Royce White and Adam Schwarze. Former Minnesota Republican Party Chairman David Hann is also considering a Senate run.

While Tafoya is not an official candidate, she has stepped up her political activities.

She’s ramped up attacks on Gov. Tim Walz, who has become a favorite GOP punching bag because of the findings of fraud in Minnesota’s social welfare programs, and has given the governor’s Republican opponents a platform on her podcast.

Tafoya, an Edina resident who also once had a talk show on WCCO Radio, also met with National Republican Senatorial Committee officials last week, an NRSC source told MinnPost. She could not be reached for comment.

Tafoya has also attacked many Democrats on social media, including Craig and Flanagan, trolling them on X.

When Craig posted this past weekend that the mass shooting at Brown University “has left my family heartbroken” and, “It’s time to address gun violence in our country,” Tafoya snapped back on X.

“Time to address it? We’ve been addressing it for decades. We’ve been ‘having the conversation.’ What do you mean to do about it? @AngieCraigMN?” Tafoya said.

When Craig recently posted that she is running for the Senate “to make sure our rural communities and every Minnesotan sees the change they deserve,” Tafoya retorted, “What is the change they deserve? Can you be specific? @AngieCraigMN.”

When Craig decried the xenophobic language President Donald Trump used to denigrate Minnesota’s Somalis, calling it “dehumanizing” and a “moral failure,” Tafoya also had a response on X.

“And two things can be true,” Tafoya posted. “It is also a moral failure that Minnesotans have been stolen from to the tune of billions. It’s also a failure of governance.”

Tafoya, who has never run for office, has also struck out at Flanagan.

When Flanagan posted on X that she was glad Walz restored food stamp benefits during the shutdown, which delayed those payments for weeks, and said “we’ll keep doing everything we can to keep (Minnesotans) fed,” Tafoya had a response.

“Just like you allowed ‘Feeding Our Future’ to commit $250 million in fraud? And NOW Minnesota taxpayers should trust you?” Tafoya posted.

And when Flanagan posted a video saying there were only four women in the Senate with children under the age of 18 and “no wonder we haven’t made progress on making childcare affordable or passing paid medical leave, or increasing the minimum wage,” Tafoya trolled again.

“Back to identity politics,” Tafoya said. “All I care about is whether or not the Senators are capable.”

Flanagan spokeswoman Alexandra Fetissoff said that “whatever candidate the GOP picks will just rubber stamp Donald Trump’s agenda, which favors billionaires over working Minnesotans.”

White, who has repeated conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic and about “Jewish elites,” and made other statements that angered GOP officials, including saying that “women have become too mouthy,” said the party is doing everything to find a mainstream Republican to run against him.

“When I heard she was meeting with the NRSC, my RINO (Republicans in Name Only) detector went up.”

Jesse Garza, a spokesman for Schwarze, said it would be difficult for Tafoya to create the infrastructure she needs, including the wooing of delegates chosen in GOP caucuses in February who will vote for a nominee at the end of May.

David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University, said there are good reasons for Tafoya to run. “She’s got enough ego and enough of a following and the Republican field is shallow.”

For the GOP, the chance to run against Walz has been more appealing than the chance to run for an open Senate seat, resulting in a crowded field.

But Schultz said that “Walz now owns the word ‘fraud,” and the governor’s popularity has plummeted, so he could ‘drag’ down” other Democratic candidates in the state, including the Democratic nominee for Senate.

That could make the race more appealing for someone like Tafoya because the Senate seat considered safely Democratic may not be as safe for Democrats anymore, Shultz said. That is especially true if the Democratic nominee is Flanagan, a progressive who would struggle in conservative Greater Minnesota, the professor said. Craig is a more moderate candidate.

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