Team Trump made a big show of targeting Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar by having DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations agents search her DC home. Just a few weeks from the 2026 midterms. DOJ convinced a Magistrate to sign a warrant, even though longstanding policy is to NOT initiate this kind of action within 60 days of an election. It won’t stop Omar from being re-elected but that might not have been the point. It might be about trying to sleaze GOP candidate Michelle Tafoya into the Senate. Basically, internal polling might have given them a heads up that Democratic candidate Peggy Flanagan has become more vulnerable.
With news that the race has tightened being reported by multiple news outlets including Newsweek perhaps Team Trump took a look at internal polling and decided to try and influence the Senate race. Yes, Trump is immersed in scandals about his own grifting and fraud and he’s lost his advantage on the issue of immigration. Targeting Omar would accomplish several things for him. Retribution (of course) for starers and Ilhan is someone he despises. He knows deep down inside he’s dragging GOP candidates down all over the country due to his ham-handed tactics against both legal and undocumented immigrants AND his own corruption. The Somali born Omar isn’t just a U.S. citizen (for decades now), she’s also from Minnesota which has a large Somali immigrant population. Bluntly put she makes a nice, shiny “LOOK AT THIS!’ shiny object at a time Trump needs all the distractions he can get. As you already know I think there is another, hidden reason the search at Omar’s home took place.
Whether it will work with Minnesota voters or backfire remains to be seen but if I’m right Trump might have greenlighted, if not ordered the Omar investigation to go public to give his Party a better shot at flipping that Senate seat. For the moment at least it seems to be having the effect Trump hoped for:
Republicans are mounting an unexpectedly competitive challenge for Minnesota’s open Senate seat, raising the possibility of an upset in a state where the party has not won a Senate election for nearly a quarter-century.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political forecasting outlet, moved the contest between Democratic Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and Republican former broadcaster Michele Tafoya from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic on Wednesday.
In an email to Newsweek on Thursday, the forecaster’s managing editor, Kyle Kondik, cited Flanagan’s “soft” polling and the “uncertainty in Minnesota this year” as reasons for the shift.
Kondik goes on to say Flanagan should still be okay. Still, with early voting underway and with election day itself happening in less than three weeks any Democratic seat (whether in the House or Senate) trending the wrong way is concerning. Democrats are so hopeful right now because an ever increasing number of races that are close or in actual red places/states are trending their way. With Minnesota trending towards the GOP the shoe is on the other foot. Also, while Flanagan has led all along she hasn’t been able to leave Tafoya in the rearview mirror. From where I sit recent polling shows this race is far closer than non-Minnesotans probably realize:
A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released Wednesday placed Flanagan 3 points ahead, with 45 percent to Tafoya’s 42 percent. Nine percent were undecided. The result represented an improvement for Flanagan after the pollster found the candidates tied at 42 percent in September, but it still left the Republican within striking distance.
A separate Mason-Dixon poll put Flanagan ahead 47 percent to 43 percent among 800 likely voters. A RealClearPolitics polling average on Friday gave her a 2.6-point advantage, down from approximately 5 points earlier in the campaign.
The SurveyUSA results revealed a sharp geographic divide. Tafoya led in three of Minnesota’s four surveyed regions, while Flanagan held a 23-point advantage in the Twin Cities. Flanagan also performed strongly among younger voters, while Tafoya led among older groups.
I don’t know about you but all that suggests a race that’s close to, if not inside what would be the margin of error for a solid poll from a credible polling organization. If not in the tossup category it looks to me at best the race falls just barely into ‘Lean Democrat’ territory. As such I think it’s dangerous for Sabato’s Crystal Ball or anyone else to be thinking, much less saying what they are and that Flanagan should be ok. This past week Trump deployed a wild-card by publicly going after Omar and again, I think this Senate race was an important factor, if not the main reason he did so.
For a long time Democrat’s concern was Georgia flipping. As things have unfolded Ossoff seems to have secured another term in the Senate. I doubt many people thought Minnesota was a cause for concern. Voters there are angry about ICE’s crackdown and the killing of two of their own. Sure, they didn’t like the news about the fraud but the majority of folks there knew it was the Walz administration that realized what was going on and dealing with it. However the GOP has had some success in tarring Walz and other Democrats. The polling data above includes important information on the geographic divide. Flanagan has to perform at least to traditional expectations (for a Democrat) in the Twin-Cities and at the same time hope that elsewhere GOP turnout doesn’t spike. Democrat’s chances of retaking control of the Senate could be at stake here.
Much is made of Democrats needing to pick up four Senate seats to regain control of the Senate. It get’s mentioned, but not emphasized often enough that Democrats also have to ‘hold serve’ as in retain every seat they already hold. Few imagined that instead of Georgia, Minnesota might be the place where Republicans could flip a Senate seat but that’s now in the realm of possibility.
I urge you to read the linked article. Again, conventional wisdom is that Flanagan should hold the seat for Democrats. However it also notes why/how what’s going on with Omar might turn this from Likely Democrat to Toss-Up. At this point getting reliable polling on whether this will affect the Senate race is doubtful. We’ll just have to see how it plays out. Newsweek’s article talks about how in their final debate there were some sharp exchanges that touched on all this. As I see it the question is whether Minnesotan’s will get suckered by Trump’s stunt with Omar, or instead realize Trump’s attempt to manipulate them and give Flanagan a truly solid victory. Keep an eye on this on election night as voting results start being announced.
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