Duane argued today that the 2026 midterms may fool us all. And that didn't even include Minnesota. How long has it been since a Republican won a statewide election in the DFL's multicultural paradise?
Okay, okay, it hasn't been that long. It's just felt like it. It has been twenty years, not 84, since Tim Pawlenty narrowly won reelection as governor in an election where Democrats won every other constitutional office. Their electoral dominance has only grown in the two decades since.
Now the electoral situation feels different, and the polls have begun to reflect it. Democrats have spent a generation expecting – and largely receiving – massive polling advantages and landslide election wins. Suddenly, however, Republican candidates have turned most statewide races into dead heats, according to polls even at M-SNOW.
What does RealClearPolling show? Right now, they're tracking only the US Senate race, where their aggregate puts Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) up only +1.6 over Michele Tafoya (R). One can extrapolate how well the other races are going by the reaction yesterday from Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has begun to stake out the we wuz robbed position already (via Twitchy):
Keith Ellison says Republicans mean to cheat in the midterms, and people should be "ready to protest, take to the streets." "Don't act like, oh, they couldn't mean that. They mean it...So be ready to get your dukes up." "I'm one who believes in peaceful protest, First Amendment." "But if they try to take our vote away, we should absolutely be in the street. And I'll be right out there with everybody else." So the sitting Minnesota AG is casting doubts on the legitimacy of the election before a vote is counted and warning about firing up street mobilization in response. Not too long ago, this kind of rhetoric was deemed by Democrats as A Threat To Democracy -- but now it's just boilerplate Democrat.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 7, 2026
"I'm one who believes in peaceful protest, First Amendment."
"But if they try to take our vote away, we should absolutely be in the street. And I'll be right out there with everybody else."
So the sitting Minnesota AG is casting doubts on the legitimacy of the election before a vote is counted and warning about firing up street mobilization in response.
Not too long ago, this kind of rhetoric was deemed by Democrats as A Threat To Democracy -- but now it's just boilerplate Democrat.
Ellison was already in deep trouble, thanks to the massive welfare frauds that the Walz administration and Ellison left undisturbed until DOGE and Nick Shirley uncovered them. Ellison has been caught on tape offering his support to the fraudsters, and that has made him an easy target for Ron Schutz. The polls flipped on the AG's race last month, and Ellison is running scared as a result. Fraud cases have dogged Flanagan too, which is why she's polling in the low-to-mid-40s against a neophyte Republican.
So things were bad enough for the DFL before October. The situation has grown exponentially worse, however, thanks to suburban shootouts between Somali gangs and terror threats that have emerged from the immigrant community that the DFL has ferociously embraced, even through fraud and violence. Suddenly, the social ills of unassimilated immigrants have exploded into communities like Edina, a wealthy enclave in Minneapolis, as well as middle-class Bloomington and Eden Prairie, where I used to work. No politician has gone as far as Flanagan and Ellison to wrap themselves around the Somali community. Flanagan even wore a hijab while declaring her solidarity with them in December, while appearing with a woman who later became a suspect in the fraud rings.
Suddenly, Tafoya has a bounty of issues in the Senate race against an opponent that was a key member of the administration that let Minnesota turn into a third-world disaster of corruption and violence:
Peggy Flanagan refuses to call out the real issue: Somali gang violence. Today, federal law enforcement foiled an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at the Mall of America. Peggy is captive to the far left. She won’t stop the fraud. She won’t stop the crime. She won’t protect Minnesota. Minnesota deserves better.
— Michele Tafoya (@Michele_Tafoya) October 8, 2026
Peggy is captive to the far left.
She won’t stop the fraud.
She won’t stop the crime.
She won’t protect Minnesota.
Minnesota deserves better.
Minnesota deserves better – if Minnesota votes for better. Tafoya and Schutz are talented, smart, and competent options to the uber-woke socialist Left that has gripped Minnesota for two decades. Voters have no excuse to stick with the failed policies of the past twenty years that transformed a state known for its stability and integrity into a morass of corruption and danger. Have Minnesotans finally had enough of the progressive-Academia elitists? This could be the surprise of the midterms.
