Too Good to Check: A Virtual Dead Heat in Minnesota?

I want to believe. I don’t … but I truly want to believe.

A Republican hasn’t won a statewide election since Tim Pawlenty’s reelection as governor in 2006. No Republican has come very close to winning statewide in Minnesota since then, either. Republicans dodged a credibility bullet in Mike Lindell’s overwhelming defeat in their gubernatorial primary, which produced one of their strongest overall tickets in years. Michele Tafoya’s nomination for the Senate put the state elections on the national map, and the DFL’s nomination of the more radical Peggy Flanagan as her opponent at least gave an opportunity to make things … interesting.

But did they make the election this interesting? The most recent Co/efficient poll shows the Minnesota Senate race a dead heat, with the DFL nominee flying at a very low level indeed for what appeared to be a safe blue state in 2026:

MINNESOTA POLL – Senate

🟦 Peggy Flanagan: 43%
🟥 Michele Tafoya: 42%
🟨 Other: 4%
——
Net Favs
Tafoya: +4
Flanagan: -9@coefficientpoll | 9/13-14 | 833 LVhttps://t.co/WGfM2fKicb pic.twitter.com/WlSf6lG17r

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 15, 2026

This might not even be the most explosive result in this poll. According to the data, Amy Klobuchar – who has decades of goodwill behind her family name in Minnesota – only gets to 47% in her gubernatorial bid against Lisa Demuth. That race is also a virtual dead heat despite Klobuchar’s normally unassailable popularity with Minnesota voters. Flanagan has always been a radical, but Klobuchar has positioned herself closer to the center and aligned with more mainstream cultural values.

If Klobuchar can’t get to 50% against Demuth, that is … something.

Of course, this is just one poll, and my first impulse was to treat it as an outlier. One point in favor of that conclusion is Donald Trump’s approval rating among the 833 likely-voter respondents. He’s underwater, but only barely at 46/51. The question splits those who like him personally (30%) and those who dislike him but support his policies (16%), but the overall result is much brighter than Trump’s 40/57 split in RCP’s aggregate job-approval rating. The generic Senate ballot also puts Republicans up one point over the DFL in Minnesota, which seems a little too good to be true.

RCP’s aggregation on the gubernatorial polling gives more evidence that the Co/efficient poll may be an outlier. Three of the four other polls in the list have Klobuchar at or above 50% and double-digit leads over Demuth. The fourth poll from the Strib/Mason-Dixon has Klobuchar up outside the margin of error at 48/40. That’s still a bit tighter than one might imagine, but not exactly close either.

On the other hand … the RCP aggregation in the Senate race hints at a competitive election ahead. Flanagan leads in all four other polls, but within the MoE, and Flanagan has yet to hit 50% in any of them. The TIPP poll had the largest sample (1,201 LVs) and also came up with a virtual dead heat at 44/42. At the very least, Flanagan hasn’t closed the deal with voters yet, and one has to wonder whether Tafoya has begun to make Minnesota voters link her to the massive fraud scandals in the Walz-Flanagan administration. That may not burden Klobuchar as much, since she was not part of state government when the massive thefts took place, and it might explain the separation between the two DFL nominees in the polls.

As I wrote, this is just one poll, but it does fit the pattern developing in other surveys in Minnesota. If you’re inclined to believe, it will be more than enough to keep hope alive … until the next polling cycle.