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Democrat Flanagan holds Minnesota Senate seat

By Thomson Reuters Nov 3, 2026 | 11:10 PM

(Corrects date in dateline)

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Democrat Peggy Flanagan won ​Minnesota’s US Senate ‌race on Tuesday, US media outlets projected.

Flanagan, the state’s lieutenant governor, defeated Republican Michele Tafoya, ‌a ​former NFL television ⁠journalist, extending Democrats’ ⁠Senate winning streak in a state that has not elected a Republican senator ​since 2002.

The victory does not improve the Democrats’ ⁠Senate math but ⁠prevents it from ​getting worse: they must net ​four seats to control the ‌100-seat chamber, and Flanagan will succeed retiring Democratic Senator Tina Smith.

Tafoya had sought ⁠to distance herself from some of President Donald Trump’s policies.

Flanagan campaigned against ⁠Trump’s ‌immigration crackdown, which ⁠brought thousands of masked ​federal ‌agents to Minnesota and ​led ⁠to the shooting deaths of two US citizens in Minneapolis.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Michael Learmonth and ​Howard Goller)