Former NFL reporter announces Senate bid in Minnesota as a Republican

 Former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya has announced she is running for the Senate in Minnesota as a Republican.

In a video posted to social media Wednesday promoting her candidacy, Tafoya, 61, argued that her career as a sports journalist meant she had “walked the sidelines when the pressure was mounting and the stakes were the highest – and that job taught me about more than football, it taught me about how leadership really works.”

“I’ll ask the tough questions and demand honest answers,” she said, promising to end corruption in the state, pursue an affordability agenda, support law enforcement, deport criminals, and prevent trans students from competing in girls’ sports, claiming: “Minnesotans are yearning for common sense leadership again.”

Originally from California, Tafoya began her broadcasting career in Minneapolis, covering college football and the NFL for years on CBS, ABC, ESPN, and, most famously, NBC Sunday Night Football from 2011 to 2022. She currently hosts an eponymous podcast.

The five-time Emmy winner filed the necessary paperwork to establish a Senate campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, having first mentioned the possibility of running in an interview with Fargo’s WDAY radio last February.

“I think Minnesota is starving for a moderate Republican who doesn’t tell them that they’re going to ban abortion but who also is the antithesis of the Tim Walz regime,” Tafoya said at the time, according to NBC News.

She reportedly met with a keen Trump ally, South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and then with the panel itself in December after finalizing her decision.

Tafoya is not a total political novice, having co-chaired Republican Kendall Qualls’ unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2022 – while also covering the Super Bowl.

The Independent has reached out to the White House to ask whether she will have the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

Republicans are understood to be looking to states won by Trump in 2024, like Michigan and Georgia, as their best bet for expanding their four-seat Senate majority in this year’s midterms – but the retirement of Minnesota’s Democratic Sen. Tina Smith is seen as an opportunity.

A self-described “pro-choice” conservative, Tafoya may have some bipartisan appeal, which could be badly needed by the GOP in a state that has seen widespread unrest this month in response to ICE’s unpopular surge into the streets of Minneapolis and the fatal shooting of Renee Good.

The party can expect to be punished at the polls without a candidate able to strike a convincingly conciliatory note in the northern state, something Tafoya may struggle to do given that she has previously threatened to “flee” Minnesota, doing so in an X post attacking California Gov. Gavin Newsom last August.

Tafoya has been critical of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison over the recent unrest, sneering at his claims that the protests have been “peaceful” and expressing “disgust” over “anti-ICE agitators” storming a church in St Paul on Sunday during an appearance on Fox News.

Tafoya will face competition from ex-NBA player Royce White, who previously lost to Democrat Amy Klobuchar, as well as former state GOP chairman David Hann and former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze.

White has already reacted to her announcement by posting an archive clip of her warning Trump not to run for the presidency again in 2023, disparaging her as a “liberal” and a “RINO establishment” candidate.

“Let’s get ready to rumble!,” he wrote. “No more 2 party puppets.”