Inject this directly into my veins. If it’s true, that is.
I wonder whether Democrats relied on Wedgewood polling for Minnesota’s Senate race. Perhaps they just relied on the last twenty years of electoral history to conclude that they didn’t need ad space in the last two weeks before the election. Regardless of the reason, it appears that Senate Democrats have decided to let Peggy Flanagan fly solo against GOP nominee Michele Tafoya, but the NRSC has decided to double down on the Senate race (via Twitchy):
🚨 BREAKING: The NRSC just dropped ad reservations for Michele Tafoya in Minnesota. Last week, I said this was coming with @LarryOConnor and @townhallcom. There are currently no ad reservations placed by the DSCC for Peggy Flanagan. 👀 https://t.co/bkLzZ8Kxva
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) October 21, 2026
What makes this even more interesting are the public poll results in Minnesota’s Senate race. RealClearPolling has never included Wedgewood – they are more discerning on pollsters than M-SNOW and the New York Times – but RCP has tracked the Minnesota Senate race with at least a half-dozen other pollsters of better repute. Not one pollster has shown Tafoya ahead in this race in any poll. Flanagan has a 3.2-point lead in the aggregate average, 46.5/43.2.
RCP’s chart of polls shows something else interesting, too:
Tafoya did make a big dent in Flanagan’s lead, but that mainly took place immediately after Labor Day. The shifts here are small in scale, but the chart fairly reflects the trends. Flanagan had a five-point lead heading into September, and Tafoya cut it down to less than two points by mid-September. That’s in virtual-tie territory, given the margins of error involved in any poll, and technically the race remains in that range even while Flanagan’s lead has slightly expanded to a little over three points.
That raises the question of why the DSCC stopped investing in Flanagan’s race. Do Democrats think Flanagan is out in front enough so that they can shift their funds to other races, perhaps betting on potential pickups in Texas, Maine, or Iowa? Or do they look at Flanagan’s inability as a quasi-incumbent to get to 50% in a state that’s been safely blue for over 20 years as a flashing red alarm about her prospects, and have decided to stop investing in a loss? Dustin Grage told Larry O’Connor earlier this week, before the NRSC bought ad space for Tafoya, that internal polling showed results that differed from the publicly published surveys, including those tracked by RCP.
Of course, we can pose similar questions to the NRSC. What do they see in Minnesota that’s prompting them to spend money there rather than, say, Nebraska, Kansas, or Iowa? Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign against James Talarico has tons of funding from the Senate Republican caucus already through its Senate Leadership Fund, which put over $30 million into Texas PAC, and Elon Musk (America PAC) and MAGA Inc are spending obscene amounts of money here. Either NRSC sees something in its private polling that suggests Tafoya is close enough for a final push or they want to force Democrats to redirect funds to play defense in Minnesota.
The bottom line: Both the NRSC and the DSCC are putting their bets down on the race, and those stakes carry far more weight than the pollsters … especially in this cycle.
I want to believe!
Addendum: The Cook Report shifted its rating for this Senate race, but not all that much:
The Cook Political Report has shifted its rating of the Minnesota Senate race toward the Republican candidate, marking one of the only instances of a major Senate race seemingly moving toward the GOP this cycle.
Cook moved the contest from “likely” to “lean” Democratic, as polls show Republican nominee Michelle Tafoya closing in on Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, D-Minn.
It’s definitely worth noting, especially with the NRSC putting more money into the home stretch and the DSCC apparently investing elsewhere.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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