Peggy Flanagan Wins Minnesota Senate Race, First Native American Woman Elected to the Senate

Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan won the state's United States Senate race on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, defeating Republican Michele Tafoya. The Associated Press projected Flanagan as the winner on election night. Her victory keeps the seat in Democratic hands after Senator Tina Smith announced she would not seek reelection in 2026.

The Associated Press results feed listed the race as called for Flanagan, with 1,195,451 votes for Flanagan and 965,703 for Tafoya in a snapshot with 77.71 percent of precincts reporting and an estimated 75.59 percent of the vote counted. An earlier Decision Desk HQ snapshot, timestamped 12:02 a.m. Eastern time on November 4, showed Flanagan with 1,134,502 votes, or 54.59 percent, Tafoya with 890,178 votes, or 42.84 percent, and Marisa Simonetti with 30,150 votes, or 1.45 percent, with 2,078,150 votes counted.

A historic first

Flanagan will be the first Native American woman elected to the United States Senate, according to Decision Desk HQ and NBC. She is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. No Native American woman has served in the Senate before. In 2019, Representative Sharice Davids and former Representative Deb Haaland became the first Native American women to serve in Congress. Four Native American men have served as senators, and the Senate was left with no Native American members when former Senator Markwayne Mullin left his seat earlier this year to serve as Homeland Security secretary.

The race

Tafoya, a former NFL television journalist, sought to distance herself from some of President Donald Trump's policies during the campaign. Minnesota has not elected a Republican senator since 2002, according to Reuters, and Flanagan's win extends that Democratic streak. Reuters noted that the victory does not improve the Democrats' Senate math, but it prevents it from getting worse, on a night when control of the chamber was decided elsewhere.

Immigration at the center

Flanagan campaigned on building a fair economy, expanding access to affordable health care, and supporting the state's farmers. She emphasized immigration reform and criticized President Trump's mass deportation policies, calling for an end to the administration's mass deportation efforts while supporting investments in border security technology and infrastructure. Immigration became a central issue in Minnesota after the Trump administration's Operation Metro Surge, a federal immigration enforcement operation that sparked protests after two United States citizens were fatally shot by federal agents. Reuters reported that the operation brought thousands of masked federal agents to Minnesota and led to the shooting deaths of two United States citizens in Minneapolis.

Flanagan succeeds Tina Smith in the seat. She goes to Washington as the first Native American woman elected to the Senate, a milestone that Minnesota voters delivered on the same night the state made history in its governor's race as well.