Michele Tafoya, a MAGA acolyte, wants to bring her extremist ideas to the US Senate. Tafoya has consistently advocated for policies that hurt Minnesotans. She cheered on Trump's Iran war, even as it caused gas prices and fertilizer costs to skyrocket, harming Minnesota farmers and families. She embraced Trump's tariffs, brushing off the pain that Minnesotans feel in the rising prices of consumer goods. Tafoya also supported the One Big Beautiful Bill, which gutted food assistance and threatened to eliminate healthcare coverage for 140,000 Minnesotans. And at a time when the vast majority of voters are against the build-up of data centers, Tafoya doubled down and called for more. Clearly, Michele Tafoya does not have Minnesotans' best interests at heart.
While Trump was bombing civilians and racking up US servicemember casualties in his Iran war, Tafoya was cheering him on. She defended his reckless war of choice, claiming it was a necessity. As the conflict was jacking up prices for gas and fertilizer, Tafoya turned a blind eye to Minnesotans' need for relief; she even suggested taking “one less trip to Starbucks,” callously pinning the cost of the war on voters' backs.
Message: Tafoya fully embraced Trump's disastrous Iran war, causing Minnesota families, farmers, and businesses to suffer higher prices.
Tafoya does not believe women should have a constitutional right to an abortion. She supported the catastrophic Dobbs decision that overturned Roe V. Wade and claimed she was aligned with President Trump on abortion policy. Tafoya called Minnesota's abortion laws “barbaric" and vowed to confirm conservative, “strict-constructionist” judges in the Senate who would only further endanger abortion rights.
Message: Time and again, Tafoya advocated for restricting Minnesota women's right to choose.
A recent survey showed that almost two-thirds of Minnesotans opposed the construction of data centers in their communities. That hasn't stopped Tafoya from championing new data centers and dismissing voter concerns. Tafoya claimed that data centers were “going to have” to be built and should just be “accepted.” This blatant disregard for concerned Minnesota citizens comes as study after study shows the community harms of data centers, ranging from health risks to higher energy costs for everyday Minnesotans.
Message: Tafoya supported the development of destructive, costly data centers, even as a vast majority of Minnesotans opposed them.
Tafoya praised Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, even as Minnesotans got battered with its consequences. Cuts to SNAP in the Big Beautiful Bill were slated to cost Minnesota over $100 million every year, and an estimated 18,000 Minnesotans had already lost food benefits since the bill's enactment. What's more, the OBBB's trillion dollar Medicaid cut endangered healthcare coverage for 140,000 Minnesotans. Still, Tafoya pledged to uphold the law in the Senate, and she even supported repealing the Affordable Care Act, which more than 139,000 Minnesotans rely on for coverage.
Message: By backing the cruel One Big Beautiful Bill, Tafoya endorsed the erosion of critical food and healthcare safety nets for vulnerable Minnesotans.
Tafoya made tackling fraud the centerpiece of her campaign, even claiming it was the reason she decided to run for Senate. Despite the resulting harm to working families, she supported the Trump Administration's move to cut off Medicaid funds to Minnesota—all in the name of stopping alleged fraud. Yet, FEC records show that Tafoya accepted thousands of dollars from Dean Bundtrock, a fraudster who cost investors $6 billion and paid the largest SEC fine in history for accounting fraud.
Message: Tafoya talks tough on fraud, but behind closed doors she was happy to rake in cash from one of the biggest fraudsters around.
As Trump's tariffs pummeled Minnesota farmers, jacked up the cost of consumer goods, squeezed local businesses, and forced job losses across the state, Tafoya claimed “tariffs work.” Amid the chaos, she refused to acknowledge that Trump usurped Congress's power of the purse to wreak his trade war havoc. Tafoya suggested that tariffs were “leverage to bring people to the table,” even as corporations reaped billions in tariff refunds while consumers got nothing.
Message: Tafoya's willingness to indulge Trump's trade war has had devastating consequences for Minnesotans' pocketbooks and livelihoods.
When Representative Pete Stauber lifted a ban on mining near Minnesota's Boundary Waters, Tafoya cheered him on, calling potential mining operations in the Superior National Forest “a great thing.” The Boundary Waters, America's most-visited wilderness, contains some of the country's most pristine waters and critical habitat, free of roads and human-made structures. Yet, Tafoya supported endangering this critical natural resource and economic boon for local communities with her endorsement of toxic mining ventures. Boundary Waters advocates warned that current proposed projects, including sulfide-ore copper mining, would inevitably lead to toxic sulfates contaminating the watershed. Tafoya ignored the danger, calling impending environmental disaster an “opportunity.”
Message: Tafoya put corporate interests over the health and safety of Minnesota's most revered wilderness.
After urging Trump not to run for President again in 2022, Tafoya swung like a weathervane into full Trump loyalist mode. Tafoya began exalting Trump, saying she was “wrong” to criticize him. After she embarked on her run for US Senate, Tafoya spoke glowingly about the prospect of receiving his endorsement. She applauded his administration's “accomplishments” and stood with Trump in support of his brutal immigration crackdown. She even hedged on whether Trump or Biden won the 2020 election.
Message: Tafoya would be another loyal MAGA foot soldier, not an independent thinker for Minnesotans.
Tafoya repeatedly insulted Minnesota, and made it clear that she did not want to be there. Tafoya said that she would be "fleeing" Minnesota soon. Tafoya also called Minnesota a "provincial" state. Tafoya even said "the last people I'm going to answer to are the Minnesotans who send me there."
Message: Tafoya, a native Californian, cannot be trusted to serve a state that she clearly hates.
Tafoya Supported Trump's Costly War With Iran
Tafoya Backed Abortion Restrictions And The Overturning Of Roe V. Wade
Tafoya Embraced Deeply Unpopular Data Centers
Tafoya Cheered Cuts To Healthcare And Food Assistance For Minnesotans
Tafoya Complained About Fraud But Took Money From A Massive Fraudster
Tafoya Backed Trump's Devastating Tariffs
Tafoya Supported Mining Near Minnesota's Precious Boundary Waters