COLD SHOULDER

Trump Pick Cornered Over Hiding Her Republican Label

A Minnesota Senate candidate appears to be distancing herself from the politically-toxic national party.

A Trump-picked Senate candidate struggled to explain why her campaign website makes no mention of her Republican affiliation when pressed on NewsNation Wednesday.

Michele Tafoya, a 61-year-old former broadcast sports reporter who recently secured Donald Trump’s endorsement as the Republican Senate candidate for Minnesota, told host Leland Vittert that she didn’t think it was “intentional”

“Your website doesn’t say you’re a Republican, anywhere on the website,” Vittert said. “Is that because, what, Republican is a dirty word in Minnesota?”

“Honestly, I don’t think it was intentional,” Tafoya replied. “We have tried to make this campaign about bringing people together. Here in Minnesota we’re tired of the bickering, we’re tired of the constant butting heads and people digging in their heels in their extreme corners.”

Her push for unity comes after she accepted an endorsement from Trump, who announced his support following a tirade about the state’s Somali community.

At an Oct. 13 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, Trump went on a lengthy diatribe about Rep. Ilhan Omar, wherein he called Somalia “one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet” and later said that “Somalia bandits, third world gangsters, jihadist sympathizers” do not belong in America.

Tafoya later accepted the endorsement from Trump in an interview with KARE 11, an affiliate of NBC in Minnesota, saying that her campaign was “about bringing everyone together.”

Tafoya has fashioned herself as a “pro-choice conservative with libertarian leanings”—siding with the left on abortion rights, and the right on immigration and other Trumpian policies — in the race against her opponent, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is running on a more progressive, working-class driven platform.

Like other Republican candidates, Tafoya has appeared to distance herself from Trump and the broader national party, which is experiencing a dip in popularity as the Iran War rages on and the economy continues to suffer. According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 36 percent of Americans would prefer Republicans to retain control of Congress, while 47 percent preferred Democrats.

During the interview with Vittert, however, Tafoya said that she rejected extremism on both sides of the political spectrum.

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“I think extreme politicians on both sides of the aisle have failed us, we’ve got to find that middle ground again,” she told Vittert.

But the conversation turned to familiar MAGA territory.

Vittert brought up Minnesota’s pandemic-era fraud cases, asking Tafoya about charges involving members of the Somali community.

“How do you end this culture of welfare dependency by a group that clearly does not want to assimilate?” Vittert asked.

Her response was mostly in line with Trump’s grievances against a community that encompasses less than 2 percent of the Minnesota population.

“[The federal government] often protected the fraudsters, at the expense of everyone else in Minnesota. I hear people say across Minnesota, ‘What about them? What about what our community needs?” Tofoya said.

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Christopher Buchanan

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