While many Minnesotans are focused on the Governor race since Tim Walz was forced to drop out of the race due to national exposure of his corruption, the U.S. Senate race also has a corrupt incumbent Democrat not seeking reelection! U.S. Senator Tina Smith is on her way out the door and the GOP can win if they can inspire the over 1.5M MAGA voters in MN to vote again in 2026. Instead, pro-abortion and anti-Trump RINO Michele Tafoya is set to enter the U.S. Senate race.

On January 20th, Michele Tafoya filed for the race as seen in FEC filings. Tafoya is best known for her role as a NFL sideline reporter for NBC. With some bit of a celebrity factor, Tafoya walks into the race with more name-ID than an average candidate. While some Republicans will believe she presents an electable path forward, they fail to factor in Tafoya’s ultra-liberal, pro-abortion, and anti-Trump political record.

Michele Tafoya has let it be well-known that she is pro-abortion. She even cut a commercial with fake pro-life group MCCL pushing the dishonest talking point that abortion, up to the moment of birth, is a Constitutional Right in Minnesota that no Governor can do anything about. That means she is falsely claiming NOTHING can be done to stop taxpayer-funded abortion, late term abortion, or even post-birth abortion! On Third Trimester Tafoya’s YouTube show, Tafoya says “On social issues, I’m a little more moderate, maybe even slightly to the left. I believe in a woman’s right to choose. Sorry, I do.” As seen in Section 2 of the MNGOP platform, Tafoya completely misses the mark of what grassroots conservatives believe on this issue.

In 2022, Michele Tafoya was the campaign co-chair for RINO Kendall Qualls' failed Governor campaign. Tafoya was widely rumored to be Qualls' running mate because he refused to announce who the Lt. Gov. would be on the ticket, even going into deep rounds of voting at the 2022 State Convention. Qualls likely feared that if he announced at the convention that his running mate would be a pro-abortion and anti-Trump person like Tafoya, he would've ensured quicker defeat.

Tafoya’s abortion position is not the only issue where she is wildly different from the conservative grassroots of Minnesota: She is also a Trump hater! Tafoya wrote an open letter to President Trump on her Substack in 2022 demanding he not run in 2024 and implies he does not love America by saying if he genuinely loves America, he wouldn’t run! Tafoya further argued that Trump is chaos and insinuates he is insane by saying “... people I know who voted for Trump just don’t want to see him back now, they want something a little closer to normal. I think people want sanity”. Tafoya also seems to think Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election when she said "some of the Trump-backed candidates really struggled, and some of that had to do with the election-denialism".

How can Michele Tafoya inspire non-traditional voters, who only showed up to the polls to vote for President Trump, to vote again in 2026 with her past comments? Many conservatives will feel back-stabbed because RINOs are prioritizing a false sense of electability over core Republican principles. President Trump won more votes in 2024 in MN than any previous GOP nominee in American history and the MNGOP has no chance of winning without the MAGA base. However, instead of working as a neutral body, the MNGOP is putting their thumbs on the scale and propping up Michele Tafoya! The incompetent MNGOP couldn't even spell her first name correctly! See below:

Despite being blocked from doing such actions by the Article IV, Section 8 of the MNGOP Bylaws, this is not the first time MNGOP Chair Alex Plechash has given favor to a candidate publicly before the party has made an endorsement. As seen in previous A4L reporting, Plechash was slammed by 2024 U.S. Senate nominee Royce White for issuing a unilateral endorsement for RINO Congresswoman Michele Fischbach while she faces major conservative backlash in her district. Plechash has shown that he is more interested in sucking up to the Establishment than he is at representing the grassroots, or at the very least, conducting himself fairly. If he wants to prove A4L wrong, he should stop promoting certain candidates over others.

It must be remembered, it was even worse before Plechash when corrupt David Hann was MNGOP Chair! Hann is also running for U.S. Senate but has been shunned by many Republicans after A4L exposed that Hann used about $30K in party funds to secretly pay a Kamala/Walz supporter. Ironically, Hann attacked Tafoya’s pro-abortion and anti-Trump record in a statement despite Hann being just as liberal as she is on those issues! Hann is the one who sent a letter to GOP candidates demanding they say abortion, up to the moment of birth, is a Constitutional Right! In 2017 and 2021 Hann said the GOP is not the party of Trump, in 2017 he called Trump “vulgar, rude, and obnoxious”, said in 2021 that he is “not a Trump guy”, and did not want President Trump to visit MN in 2022 to help Republicans win! Hann's attacks on Tafoya is the pot calling the kettle black!

Hann is likely positioned in fourth place as the race currently stands. Firebrand conservative Royce White and Marine veteran Adam Schwarze have emerged as the top two candidates thus far, though Tafoya's candidate filing throws a wrench into the race. With the Establishment like NRSC Chair Sen. Tim Scott and morons like State Rep. Mary Franson are supporting Tafoya, she can clearly appeal to the Uniparty and its lackeys. White slammed Tafoya’s entry into the race and challenged her to debate him, starting with an immediate debate tonight (1/21/26, the date the post was written). Patriots can look to future A4L reporting to provide a breakdown of all 10 GOP candidates running for U.S. Senate.

Third Trimester Tafoya likely brings money and attention but her leftist political history will make her a tough sell to conservative GOP delegates and voters. It is not clear if she will abide by the party’s endorsement, which makes it even more egregious that the MNGOP would prop her up on social media pre-endorsing convention.

Action 4 Liberty will continue providing Patriots with hardcore, liberty-based, anti-establishment reporting that cannot be found anywhere else. The Establishment’s embracing of Michele Tafoya may result in unintended consequences because conservatives continue to figure out in bigger and bigger numbers that the corrupt RINOs running the party cannot be trusted. A4L will never waiver in our mission to protect liberty for the next generation.