Minnesota has made Senate history. The Associated Press has called the state's open United States Senate race for Democratic Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan over Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL television journalist — a victory that keeps the seat in Democratic hands and, as multiple outlets reporting the result note, makes Flanagan the first Native American woman ever elected to the United States Senate.

Source: Associated Press — Minnesota Senate results

In the Associated Press count, Flanagan had 1,474,936 votes to Tafoya's 1,164,887 — a margin of 310,049 votes — with 3,880 of Minnesota's 4,105 precincts reporting, 94.5 percent of precincts and an estimated 93 percent of the vote counted. Independent candidate Marisa Simonetti had 39,751 votes and Libertarian Rebecca Whiting 31,026. The seat was left open by retiring Democratic Senator Tina Smith, who announced she would not seek re-election in 2026.

Source: Associated Press — Minnesota Senate results

A historic first, built in St. Paul

Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe, has served as Minnesota's lieutenant governor since 2019 alongside Governor Tim Walz, after earlier service in the state legislature. She was the first woman of color elected to statewide office in Minnesota and, at the time of that election, the highest-ranking Native American woman in elected executive office in the country. Native American men have served in the Senate before; no Indigenous woman ever had — until Tuesday night in Minnesota. She won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor nomination in the August primary, defeating Representative Angie Craig, and will now succeed Smith when the new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027.

Source: Scripps News via Tampa Bay 28

Reuters notes that the victory extends a long Democratic hold on Minnesota's Senate seats: the state has not elected a Republican senator since 2002. It does not by itself change the Senate's balance-of-power math — the AP has already declared a Democratic majority built on flips in states including Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Kansas and North Carolina — but, as Reuters puts it, the hold prevents the Democrats' position from getting worse on a night when every seat counted toward the net gain of four they needed.

Source: Reuters via KELO-FM

Immigration enforcement decided this race as much as any issue

Flanagan campaigned on building a 'fair economy,' expanding access to affordable health care and supporting the state's farmers, according to Scripps News — and at the centre of her campaign sat immigration. She criticised President Donald Trump's mass deportation policies, called for ending the administration's mass deportation efforts while supporting investment in border security technology and infrastructure, and campaigned against what Reuters describes as Trump's immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which brought thousands of masked federal agents to the state. That operation — the federal enforcement surge known as Operation Metro Surge — sparked protests across Minneapolis after two United States citizens were fatally shot by federal agents, a sequence of events that turned Minnesota into the emotional centre of the national immigration fight this year.

Source: Scripps News via Tampa Bay 28

Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter seeking her first elected office, had sought to distance herself from some of President Trump's policies, according to Reuters — an acknowledgement of how difficult the administration's Minnesota operation had made the race for a Republican, even in a campaign where Republicans had hoped to turn the state into a rare Senate pickup opportunity. The final numbers say the distancing was not enough: at midnight, with 73 percent of precincts reporting and more than two million votes counted, the Center Square reported Flanagan leading 55 percent to 43 percent, and the AP's later, fuller count kept the margin in the same range.

Source: Reuters via KELO-FM

What happens next

The Associated Press call is a projection; Minnesota's remaining ballots, including late-counted valid votes, will still be added before the state canvass certifies the result. Flanagan is due to resign the lieutenant governorship and take her Senate seat on January 3, 2027, keeping both of Minnesota's Senate seats in Democratic hands and adding a first to the chamber's history books. In the same election, Minnesota voters also chose a new governor — Senator Amy Klobuchar defeated state House Speaker Lisa Demuth in that race, according to the AP count — completing a Democratic sweep of the state's two biggest prizes on a night that rewrote the Senate map across the country.