Michele Tafoya, who spent years roaming N.F.L. sidelines as a reporter for NBC, ABC and ESPN, is viewed as a heavy favorite in the Republican primary race for Senate in Minnesota on Tuesday.
Here are five things to know about Ms. Tafoya, 61, who lives in Edina, outside Minneapolis.
1. She was one of the country’s best-known sports reporters. Ms. Tafoya’s decades-long, Emmy Award-winning career in broadcasting took her to the Olympics, hundreds of N.F.L. games and five Super Bowls. Her last broadcast was of Super Bowl LVI, in 2022. (The Los Angeles Rams won.) She went straight into politics, serving as a chair of Kendall Qualls’s Republican campaign for governor in 2022.
2. Her campaign has leaned into her connections to football. Ms. Tafoya’s campaign announcement video showed her striding across a snow-covered football field and discussing her career covering the N.F.L. “That job taught me about more than football,” Ms. Tafoya says in the video. “It taught me about how leadership really works. When leaders are prepared and accountable, teams succeed. When they aren’t, people pay the price.” She has spoken regularly about sports during the campaign, often focusing on her opposition to transgender female athletes playing in women’s sports.
3. She supports access to abortion for the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy. Ms. Tafoya has long called herself a “pro-choice” Republican. In an open letter published on her campaign website, she describes enduring five miscarriages and says abortion is the issue she gets asked about most. She writes that she supported the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to end federal abortion protections and that she believes states should set abortion laws. But she adds, “I do not support an outright ban on abortion, and I believe there should be reasonable access in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.”
4. She is running without President Trump’s endorsement. Ms. Tafoya may not have the president’s public support, often a powerful weapon in Republican primaries, but Mr. Trump has not endorsed anyone else in the crowded Republican race. Other candidates include the former N.B.A. player Royce White, who was the Republican nominee for Senate in Minnesota in 2024 and styles himself as a MAGA candidate.
5. She has embraced an electability argument. Minnesota has not elected a Republican in a statewide race since 2006, but Ms. Tafoya has argued that her approach could help put the state in play in the national Senate battle. “I’m asking Republican voters to choose me because I’m the proven, electable conservative who will bring some Minnesota common sense to Washington,” she said in a candidate questionnaire published by KAXE, a Minnesota radio station. Still, she has embraced the Trump administration’s handling of immigration after its deadly crackdown in Minnesota in the winter, which polls suggested was unpopular. Ms. Tafoya’s campaign website says 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.”
The post 5 Things to Know About the Minnesota Senate Candidate Michele Tafoya appeared first on New York Times.
