GOP nominee Michele Tafoya on what she would do if elected to U.S. Senate

Michele Tafoya going from NFL sideline reporter to Senate nominee is the kind of jump that usually gets mocked in this business, but Minnesota Republicans just handed her the ticket after a primary that has them talking like they haven't in years. That optimism is worth paying attention to. It's not coming from nowhere.

Tafoya has spent the last few years saying out loud what a lot of people in that state have been thinking quietly, about schools, about COVID mandates, about the direction of the Twin Cities after 2020. She's not a career politician reciting talking points, and her sit-down with Esme Murphy on WCCO didn't sound like one either. Whatever you think of her chances in November, she's running as someone who actually lived through the fights she's campaigning on, not someone who studied them in a briefing book.

Minnesota hasn't sent a Republican to the Senate since Norm Coleman, and the state has a habit of flirting with GOP momentum before pulling back at the last minute. So the caution here is fair. But a candidate who built a following by being blunt on camera for a decade has a real shot at cutting through in a way a generic nominee wouldn't. If Republicans are going to break through in a state like this, it's going to take someone willing to say the obvious things other candidates tiptoe around. Tafoya, at minimum, isn't tiptoeing.