Minnesota Senate race could reshape balance of power

And one of our experts joins us now, political analyst Boyce Olson here. All right, so Boyce, there's a lot to talk about with this U.S. Senate race. Let's talk about how it plays into the national picture. Well, really, this is one of the rare seats that Republicans thought they could flip. Republicans have been playing defense in a lot of places, even just Iowa to our south, Kansas and Texas, we know. That has meant that Michelle Tafoya didn't get the national help she wanted because they were spending a lot of money there. And so I think that's one of the this is one of the bright spots Republicans have nationally is that can they flip this seat? Yeah, and let's talk about, sort of, you mentioned the money there, but also just endorsement-wise, too, when we think about Tafoya, endorsed by the president, Peggy Flanagan, of course, a lot of people saw her as underneath, you know, the governor, so interesting things playing out there, but money-wise, going back to that, what have we seen when it comes to money coming into the state of Minnesota when it comes to this race? Michelle Tafoya actually out-raised Peggy Flanagan, which is rare in Minnesota to have a Republican out-raise a Democrat. Peggy Flanagan was also outraised in the primary against Angie Craig. And the national money has not flown into Minnesota in a big way. You know, these federal races are usually about big money coming into the state. We just haven't seen it here in Minnesota. All right, let's talk about the candidates, too, in this race. You have NFL sideline reporter Michelle Tafoya and then Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. Again, there. They're nontraditional in some ways for their parties. They are. Peggy Flanagan would be the most progressive senator Minnesota has ever elected. Michelle Tafoya is bucking her own party as a pro-choice Republican. She said that, you know, she would push back against President Trump more and more. She really tried to separate herself as an independent. In fact, you know, she did not get the Republican Party endorsement. She was seen as not MAGA enough for the modern Minnesota Republican Party. And so they're both trying to kind of carve their own path. In a year when very much around the country, both parties were looking for very traditional candidates to kind of keep the party together. Yeah, and it's been interesting to see, I think when we talked with Karen Scullin, when she was out for the attorney's race and they were doing their final pushes, still, you know, going to order, nor walking around. I'm assuming when it comes to a race like this, a lot of people might already have their minds made up. Do you think that, I mean, we're less than three hours at this point. Anything else that they could do or say? You know, probably not, but I think that there's probably voters out there still doing their homework if they are undecided. And we have seen a swath of undecideds here. We've seen Peggy Flanagan running behind Amy Klobuchar the whole time. And we've seen Michelle Tafoya running a little ahead of Lisa Damon the whole time. So this is one of those races we expect to be very close tonight. Yeah, and it seems like it's unique in a lot of ways. There are some Minnesota elements of this that may be different than a race in Maine, of course, North Carolina, Ohio. But when we start to get results in from Eastern time, Yeah. Is there anything that you're going to look for that might tell us some stories about how it might go in Minnesota and beyond for the rest of the night? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think you're going to look at Maine first. You're going to look at South Carolina and North Carolina and then Michigan. Michigan's on the eastern time zone. And so how those states go might indicate here. But the other thing that's really unique here is as a lieutenant governor. Peggy Flanagan's had to defend herself against state issues when she's running for a federal office. And that is one of the challenges that she's had. She couldn't get that fraud behind her. Michelle Tafoya kept wanting to talk about fraud. We didn't talk as much about the war or federal issues or the debt or those traditional issues you'd have in a Senate race. Yeah, and that might be part of the research that you said that some people are doing right now when it comes to maybe what's at the top of their minds. It could be affordability, the economy, those sorts of things. But we know a lot of people have fraud at the top of their minds. It is fraud. Health care is the other big issue that showed up in polling, and that is seen as a federal issue. People want the federal government to fix health care. We'll see how it turns out tonight. All right. You'll be with us all night for our election coverage. Begins at 7 o'clock, and then it goes till whenever. Never. The primary, it seems like we got some results fairly late. You know, it just depends. I have a little track record here going kind of late. My first one was Jesse Ventura, and my next one was Al Gore's recount in Florida. So I'm sorry, guys. I'm a little cursed. I was in Palm Beach County for the 2000 election. I didn't sleep for like 14 days. So she might have beat you on that one. Yeah, for sure. It seems like it was just yesterday, and it was 26 years ago. I know. Sorry. That's the kind of luck we're going to bring to the table. Long night. All right. We'll see. Thank you, boys.