Loading this candidate’s profile from the FEC filings and campaign records.
Where They Stand is a nonpartisan guide to everyone running for Congress: their money, their own words and how incumbents voted. Find your ballot →
Candidates › Minnesota U.S. Senate race › 2025–2026
Michele Tafoya
R Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Minnesota
Has not served in Congress
- On the ballot
- On the general election ballotNov 3, 2026 · Minnesota US Senate
- Where to vote
- Find your polling place (opens in a new tab) · More ways to vote
- Top priorities
- Stop The Fraud
- Law and Order
- Cut Costs and Taxes for the Middle Class
- Bring Back Courage and Common Sense
- Money
- $12.5M raised, $9.7M spent, $2.8M cash on hand (through Oct 14, 2026). Where it comes from
- Who gives
- 47% of individual money from donors at $200 or less · 53% from Minnesota · largest committee giver NRSC, $62K
- Outside groups
- $44.9K supporting, $701.6K opposing Tafoya
- Backed by
- Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association · Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis · Minnesota Farm Bureau and 4 more. As the campaign lists them
- Polling
- 42% in the latest poll (SurveyUSA) · trails Peggy Flanagan by 2.8 points on average. The polls
4 priorities from micheletafoya.com, in the order they are listed there. Every heading and the text under it is copied exactly, as one passage for each page it is from, and links to that place on the page; hover a source to see which passage it opens.
The status quo politicians let criminals steal billions of dollars of Minnesota taxpayers’ hard-earned money. They let fraudsters rob us blind rather than ask basic questions that might have seemed politically incorrect. We need to clean up our state and lead the way toward a nationwide anti-fraud agenda.
- Any immigrant who is a guest in our country and gets convicted of fraud must be deported. As our Senator, Michele will cosponsor and lead the Deporting Fraudsters Act with Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and John Cornyn.
- Stop treating fraud as a second-class crime. As our Senator, Michele will fight for tough new mandatory minimum sentences that put fraudsters in federal prison and keep them there.
- Make state leaders do their job. As our Senator, Michele will push to strip federal funding from any state that refuses to implement anti-fraud controls or follow basic audit and recovery practices.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · micheletafoya.com/issues
Heading as listed on micheletafoya.com/issues ↗ (opens micheletafoya.com/issues at this heading)
Minnesota was ground zero for the “Defund the Police” movement. The far left decided that empathy and endless chances for violent offenders were more important than standing with victims, law enforcement and law-abiding citizens. That same ideology still controls our criminal justice system.
Their experiment has failed. It’s gotten Minnesotans hurt. Our state has more homicides, more rapes, more aggravated assaults and more auto thefts than we did six years ago. Our criminal justice system is a turnstile. A majority of violent crimes go unsolved.
- Stand with law enforcement. As our Senator, Michele will push for more funding, top-quality equipment and training for the men and women who put their own safety at risk to protect us all, and fight against efforts to remove the legal protections they need to do their job.
- Restore Minnesota’s commonsense, tough-on-crime voice in Congress. For most Minnesotans, public safety isn’t partisan. But Tina Smith has the fifth most extreme liberal voting record in the Senate. She voted against the bipartisan Laken Riley Act and tried to block the detention of illegal immigrants who have admitted to committing crimes. As our Senator, Michele will fight for what Minnesotans want: tougher penalties, safer neighborhoods and the rights of victims and innocent families to live in peace.
- Enforce our laws, deport criminal illegal aliens and let federal, state and local law enforcement work together. Democratic mayors, Governors and Attorneys General do not have veto power over federal law. The American people overwhelmingly agree with President Trump that our border should be secure, our laws should be enforced and criminal illegal immigrants should be deported. As our Senator, Michele will fight tooth and nail against the far left’s campaign to abolish ICE and reopen America’s borders.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · micheletafoya.com/issues
Heading as listed on micheletafoya.com/issues ↗ (opens micheletafoya.com/issues at this heading)
The career politicians and D.C. bureaucrats have one mission: Take away more of our money and freedom and seize more power for themselves. But no nation can tax, borrow and print its way to prosperity. The far left’s tax hikes and runaway spending got us painful inflation that is still squeezing Minnesotans to this day.
We need outsiders who will make Congress spend less, borrow less and tax less — and invest in American workers instead of selling them out.
- Protect working families’ tax cuts. The far left wants to repeal the Working Family Tax Cuts that just put thousands of dollars back in Minnesotans’ pockets. As our Senator, Michele will oppose any tax increase on the middle class and stand up for us, not the IRS.
- Real solutions for healthcare. Healthcare inflation is hammering Minnesotans and the career politicians have done nothing. For decades, we had one party establishment trying to hand our healthcare decisions to faceless government bureaucrats that would leave us waiting longer for worse care, and another party establishment that let faceless corporate bureaucrats deny claims and overcharge patients for insurance premiums, procedures and prescription drugs. As our Senator, Michele will fight ALL the bureaucrats, middlemen and price-gougers, cut prescription drug costs and keep power in the hands of patients.
- All-of-the-above affordable energy. The far left talks about “affordability,” but they’ve spent decades at war against the sources of power that actually work. Our family budgets and national security depend on affordable, clean-burning American energy that doesn’t stop when the sun sets or the wind stops blowing. As our Senator, Michele will support all U.S. energy sources so Minnesotans can see lower utility bills and gas prices while continuing to protect our environment.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · micheletafoya.com/issues
Heading as listed on micheletafoya.com/issues ↗ (opens micheletafoya.com/issues at this heading)
Above all, Minnesota has a crisis of leadership. Some of the career politicians who run and represent our state are crazy, some are cowards and some are both. We need an outsider with a backbone who will never take orders from special interests or deny the truth to avoid making waves.
- Get men out of women’s sports. The radical social experiments on our daughters have to stop. As our Senator, Michele will protect Minnesota kids from insane ideologies and keep men out of women’s sports and locker rooms.
- Stronger schools and parents’ rights. Minnesota’s schools used to be a crown jewel. Now they’ve become a jobs program for grownups while students’ test scores have fallen. As our Senator, Michele will fight for education reform that restores parents’ say, increases transparency and accountability and reverses the decline in test scores.
- Strengthen elections. It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat. We have to show photo ID to drive a car, board an airplane or open a bank account. There is no excuse for not protecting our democracy with voter ID and paper ballots. As our Senator, Michele will fight for the SAVE Act and other commonsense steps to protect the ballot.
- Ask tough questions, follow the facts and get the truth. Michele isn’t a career politician, but an award-winning journalist who spent decades asking tough questions, following the facts and finding the truth. As our Senator, Michele will use the investigatory and oversight powers of the U.S. Senate to fight corruption, call out lies and give everyday Minnesotans a voice on Capitol Hill.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · micheletafoya.com/issues
Heading as listed on micheletafoya.com/issues ↗ (opens micheletafoya.com/issues at this heading)