Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won her Senate primary in part by skewering her Democratic rival for voting with the GOP on immigration. Republicans are opening the general election by ignoring the issue.
GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya and Senate Republicans’ campaign arm both avoided any mention of immigration or ICE in their starting salvos against Flanagan, instead focusing on tying the lieutenant governor to the welfare scandal that has rocked the state.
Tafoya, in a statement and in television interviews after her win, said Democrats are pushing Minnesota “in the wrong direction” and cited the “national embarrassment of fraud, of dropping test scores, of crime” as why.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Flanagan “oversaw the worst fraud scandal in modern American history and is now running as one of the most radical socialist Senate candidates on the map.”
Republicans’ sidestep comes as President Donald Trump ramps up immigration enforcement ahead of November — even as voters grow increasingly sour on his deportation agenda. A majority of Americans — including 91 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents, but only 19 percent of Republicans — said ICE has used too much force, according to a July Economist/YouGov survey. And Minnesota, which was rocked earlier this year by the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, has been at the epicenter of the issue.
Flanagan isn’t letting up.
“Michele Tafoya was all in with Trump when ICE was terrorizing our neighbors,” Flanagan said in her victory speech Tuesday night. “The last thing this country needs is to give Donald Trump another ‘yes, sir’ senator.”
Republicans are already starting the general election at a massive disadvantage in a blue-leaning state where they haven’t won a Senate seat since 2002 and where Trump is deeply unpopular. Flanagan’s win over Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) — whom she slammed for backing the Laken Riley Act and a resolution that included a line expressing gratitude for ICE — shows how salient an issue immigration has become in Minnesota.
Republicans “hold the bag for [Operation] Metro Surge, and we haven’t forgotten it here in Minnesota especially with the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti,” said Ron Harris, a Democratic strategist and former Minnesota congressional candidate who supported Flanagan in the primary.
Democrats are working to put Republicans on defense on immigration across the map as the Trump administration’s crackdown continues. Sen. Susan Collins, one of the most at-risk Republicans, has faced protests for voting to fund ICE after Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was killed by a federal immigration agent in Maine last month. Some Republicans have also distanced themselves from the Trump administration’s tactics.
Still, Flanagan has shown some caution on how far she goes, declining to call for abolishing ICE in the same way as some of her progressive counterparts in other states, from Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan to Juliana Stratton in Illinois.
Asked by POLITICO earlier this week whether she was calling to abolish ICE, Flanagan replied: “I’m saying we need to rip it apart.”
Samuel Benson and Alec Hernández contributed to this report.
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