Minnesota · Senate
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Peggy Flanagan
Who is running?
Peggy Flanagan (Democratic), Michele Tafoya (Republican), Marisa Simonetti (Independent), Rebecca Whiting (Libertarian). The margin below is Peggy Flanagan minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
Minnesota elects a U.S. senator on November 3, 2026, for the seat Democrat Tina Smith is leaving. The text says it is the first Minnesota Senate election without an incumbent since 2006, and that Republicans have not won a Senate election in the state since 2002. The state profile gives a median age of 38.6 and a college share of 0.4.
The DFL nominee is Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who won the party endorsement by acclamation on May 30 and the August 11 primary with 59.0% to Representative Angie Craig's 39.4%. The Republican nominee is Michele Tafoya, a reporter and retired sports broadcaster, who won with 52.1% over Adam Schwarze at 24.0% and Royce White at 11.2%. Independent Marisa Simonetti and Libertarian Rebecca Whiting are also running. Flanagan had raised $6,516,273 with $1,058,604 on hand as of July 22, 2026; Tafoya had raised $4,669,609 with $2,080,632 on hand as of June 30, 2026.
Nine of the ten raters listed call the race D, including the Cook Political Report (September 23, 2026) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 22, 2026); RealClearPolitics lists it as a Tossup (September 24, 2026). The text's polling average is Flanagan 44.7%, Tafoya 42.4%. Recent polls include InsiderAdvantage (R) (September 28–29, 2026) at Flanagan 46%, Tafoya 45%; co/efficient (R) (September 14–15, 2026) at 43% to 42%; and KSTP/SurveyUSA (September 9–14, 2026) tied at 42%.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Democratic incumbent Tina Smith is not seeking a second full term.
Democratic lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan and Republican former journalist Michele Tafoya are the nominees for their respective parties.
Tafoya won the Republican nomination with 52.1% of the vote over Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze and former basketball player Royce White.
Peggy Flanagan, lieutenant governor of Minnesota (2019–present)
Michele Tafoya, reporter and retired sports broadcaster
Flanagan and congresswoman Angie Craig sought the Democratic nomination, which Flanagan won on August 11 with 59% of the vote.
RealClearPolitics Tossup September 24, 2026 Sabato's Crystal Ball D September 22, 2026
|Michele Tafoya (R) $4,669,609 $2,588,977 $2,080,632
InsiderAdvantage (R) September 28–29, 2026 1,200 (LV) ±3.0% |46% 45%
This will be the first Senate election in Minnesota without an incumbent since 2006. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Minnesota since 2002.
Flanagan won the endorsement by acclamation at the convention on May 30.
Rebecca Whiting (Libertarian), farmer, nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024
Not in the source: facts.forecast carries no basis field.; The text gives no presidential results for Minnesota and no result for Smith's previous race.; No general-election finance reports; Flanagan's and Tafoya's figures are from different primary-period dates.; Raters' calls are given only as 'D' or 'Tossup', with no Lean/Likely/Safe grade.; Endorsement sections are empty in the text.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as eb6b5823971d; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Amy Klobuchar (Democrat), in this chamber since 2007, 4 terms, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry (Ranking Member); Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senate Committee on Rules and Administration; Senate Committee on the Judiciary; Joint Committee of Congress on the Library; Joint Economic Committee.
Tina Smith (Democrat), in this chamber since 2018, 3 terms, class 2 (term ends 2027). Committees: Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Senate Committee on Finance; Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Craig, Angie (DEM) open seat · not on our roster | $12,746,618 | $3,567,180 | 6% | 3% | $9,255,638 | $2,056,035 |
| Flanagan, Margaret (DFL) open seat | $6,517,348 | $1,058,604 | 3% | 0% | $311,744 | $7,028,909 |
| Tafoya, Michele (REP) open seat | $5,337,942 | $1,372,728 | 3% | 0% | $19,682 | $51,476 |
| Schwarze, Adam (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $1,439,561 | $183,816 | 4% | 3% | $0 | $0 |
| White, Royce (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $661,620 | $35,771 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Lopez Franzen, Melisa (DEM) open seat · not on our roster | $299,376 | $0 | 2% | 33% | $0 | $0 |
| Weiler, Tom (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $220,514 | $121,540 | 0% | 82% | $0 | $0 |
| Hann, David W (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $133,465 | $0 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| York, Mark (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $74,070 | $4,542 | 0% | 8% | $0 | $0 |
| Smith, Tina (DEM) incumbent · not on our roster | $48,764 | $200,915 | 47% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Whiting, Rebecca (LIB) open seat · not on our roster | $1,257 | $1,257 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Petersen, Raymond David (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $973 | $0 | 0% | 100% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through July 22, 2026; $18,723,484 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | D+1.7 | D+7.3 | D+4.3 |
A shift of 2.7 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 38.8% | 34.0% | +4.8 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 76.7% | 66.3% | +10.4 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 6.7% | 10.1% | -3.4 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 6.2% | 12.9% | -6.7 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 5.0% | 4.4% | +0.7 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 8.6% | 9.6% | -1.1 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 38.6 | 39.1 | -0.48 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $87,556 | $77,633 | $+9,923 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $305,500 | $314,132 | $-8,632 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 72.4% | 67.4% | +5.0 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 3.9% | 4.8% | -0.9 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 1.6% | 3.0% | -1.4 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 15.8% | 12.3% | +3.6 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 7.6% | 11.1% | -3.5 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 29.7% | 32.1% | -2.4 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 3.3% | 2.6% | +0.6 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 1.9% | 2.9% | -1.0 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.45 | 0.47 | -0.02 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 4.6% | 4.0% | +0.6 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | +0.6 pts | -0.1 pts | +0.7 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | +1.1 pts | -0.1 pts | +1.2 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $75,603 | $70,662 | $+4,941 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 30.6% | 32.4% | -1.8 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 17.8% | 19.4% | -1.6 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 5.4% | 6.1% | -0.7 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 3.6% | 4.4% | -0.8 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 4.3% | 3.8% | +0.5 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.4% | 0.6% | -0.1 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.2% | 0.3% | -0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.6% | 0.9% | -0.3 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.8% | 1.5% | -0.7 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.5% | 1.2% | -0.7 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -7.9 and +10.5 points. Election day: -6.0 to +16.3. The election-day interval is 4.0 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 7.11 points, made of race-specific polling error 49%, drift to election day 32%, correlated polling error 12%, latent opinion 7%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
10 polls, most recent 2026-09-29. 30% verified against a primary source.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Peggy Flanagan ahead of Marisa Simonetti. Over 18 stored forecasts the central estimate moved +1.8 points. There were 7 specification changes (marked on the axis) and 1 new poll arrived over this window — so the movement mixes new evidence with changes to the model.
Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls.
Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run c50fb551-2511-4daf-83cd-141896027ecb and election-day run a9286e83-a9c5-4b2c-bfd0-6d03b74a60a7, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.