Meet Michele Tafoya, candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota | WCCO Election Guide
Michele Tafoya, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, is a former NBC sideline reporter and four-time Emmy winner who is now a conservative commentator. She is running for the open seat vacated by retiring Sen. Tina Smith.
Watch her 60-second video pitch and read how she'd tackle Minnesota's top issues, from the national debt and health care to immigration, the economy and fraud.
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The federal government is running significant annual deficits. What specific federal spending would you cut or protect, and what tax changes, if any, would you support to address the national debt?
Big-spending career politicians have brought our country to the brink of disaster. The national debt is over $40 trillion. We're $2 trillion in the red this year alone. We now spend more on interest alone than we spend on the U.S. military.
Peggy Flanagan is running on middle-class tax hikes and massive spending. She has already tried these policies here in Minnesota and they have failed. Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and Tim Walz inherited a budget surplus but turned it into a deficit. They failed to protect the taxpayer money they already collect from rampant fraud.
Peggy Flanagan believes Minnesotans are under-taxed. I believe the career politicians in Washington are overspending. I will protect core programs like Social Security, Medicare and the national defense by stopping Congress's runaway spending, cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse and taking money and power out of D.C. and returning it to Minnesotans.
What changes would you support to federal health care policy, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid?
The career politicians in both parties get health care wrong. Half of them want to hand health care over to government bureaucrats, the other half to corporate bureaucrats. I want to help Minnesotans make their own decisions and afford care.
Peggy Flanagan wants a government takeover of health care that would cost taxpayers trillions per year and provide free coverage to people in our country illegally. She also wants to repeal the Rural Health Transformation fund that is investing approximately $200 million a year into Minnesota hospitals, tribal healthcare, maternal health and youth mental health.
I will protect that funding and fight for practical solutions to cut health care costs. I will fight to stop corporate hospitals and Big Pharma from blatantly overcharging Americans, from overcharging for the same services, stop huge insurers from abusing prior authorization to deny seniors' care and strengthen Medicare and Medicaid by fighting fraud.
What immigration policies would you support at the federal level, including border security measures and any pathway to legal status for people currently in the country without authorization?
I am a proud granddaughter of immigrants. America can be both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. Minnesota can be both welcoming and safe and secure. These principles are not in conflict. They reinforce each other.
The far left's open borders policy was not fair or compassionate. It was unfair to law-abiding Americans, to legal immigrants who come here the right way and to the men, women and children who were led into a humanitarian disaster by open borders rhetoric from our politicians.
Unlike Peggy Flanagan, I stand with clear majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents who support strong border security. I will call out both extremes and fight for a commonsense immigration policy that protects national security, preserves the rule of law and provides opportunity for high-skilled talent, guest workers and future Americans like my grandparents who want to follow the law and assimilate.
What would you do in Congress to support jobs and economic growth in Minnesota, including your position on tariffs and international trade agreements?
Minnesotans don't want permanent high tariffs. We also don't want the old, failed approach where other countries took advantage of American workers, farmers and manufacturers. I support using short-term leverage to lock in new trade deals that will open even larger markets. Canada is an especially critical export market for Minnesota, and I wish the President had taken a different approach. We should have already renewed the USMCA.
Peggy Flanagan's answer to every question is to tax more, spend more, regulate more and give more power to bureaucrats. We cannot tax and borrow our way to prosperity. I will fight for a thriving economy that drives up wages, drives down costs, encourages small businesses to grow and lets working families keep more of their hard-earned money. I will fight tax increases and cut redundant red tape while preserving legitimate regulations we need to protect health, safety and our natural resources.
Minnesota has been at the center of some of the largest public-program fraud cases in the country in recent years. What would you do in Congress to strengthen oversight and prevent this kind of fraud in the future?
I am running for Senate to channel Minnesotans' righteous anger at our fraud scandal into real action and reform. It is sickening that our Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan spent years doing nothing while criminals stole billions of taxpayer dollars. Peggy Flanagan was either complicit or totally clueless. Either one is disqualifying. This happened on her watch.
As our Senator, I will introduce legislation to hold state officials accountable when they fail to prevent or address fraud involving taxpayer funds. We should use the lever of federal funding to make every state implement strong anti-fraud controls. We also need stronger oversight and better coordination between federal and state agencies to detect fraud earlier and recover stolen funds faster. And I will co-sponsor the Deporting Fraudsters Act to punish illegal immigrants who commit fraud as well as tougher prison sentences for Americans who do the same.