Long-time sideline reporter Michele Tafoya hopes to break the Republican Party’s 20-year losing streak in Minnesota’s statewide elections by winning a senate seat this November.
But while she’s considered a staunch conservative with solid MAGA credentials, the Minneapolis Star Tribune warns her ‘squishy’ positions on a few key issues could leave her vulnerable in the GOP primary without the endorsement of key Republican delegates.
One issue is that Tafoya describes herself as ‘pro-choice’ and supports abortion access up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
On the other hand, she disapproves of taxpayer-funded abortions, supports state rights on the issue and has claimed Minnesota’s liberal abortion laws are ‘barbaric.’
But while her views are shared by millions of Americans, her ‘pro-choice’ stance clashes with a primary field that includes former basketball star Royce White, described as an anti-abortion ‘absolutist,’ and retired Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze, who has gone a step further by crusading against birth control.
‘And women, if they’re natural, not on birth control, they’re actually more attracted to more alpha cavemen, providers, protectors, but birth control changes that,’ Schwarze said in a 2025 radio interview.
Commentator Michele Tafoya looks on during Super Bowl LVI between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium on February 13, 2022 in Inglewood
Michael Jordan gives a postgame interview to Michele Tafoya of ESPN after winning the NBA game against the Los Angeles Lakers at the MCI Center on November 8, 2002
The good news for Tafoya heading into August’s primary is that she holds a 30-point lead over White (41 percent to 11 percent) according to Republican-aligned political consulting and data analytics firm Peak Insights.
What’s more, she’s also getting support from the campaign arm of US Senate Republicans.
As Rudy Boschwitz, a former Republican US Senator from Minnesota, told the Star Tribune, Tafoya is ‘as strong a candidate as the Republicans have put forward in 15 years.’
But to help win over hesitant primary voters in Minnesota, the Star Tribune explains, she will need endorsements from a small group of state Republican delegates, many of whom previously supported White’s failed senate bid in 2024.
The piece argues that in 2018, now-former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty ran for re-election with the same types of advantages that Tafoya now holds only to sidestep the endorsement process and ultimately lose the primary.
To avoid that fate, Tafoya has hit the campaign trail, where she’s trying to position herself as both a conservative and someone who can win a general election in left-leaning Minnesota.
‘For close to three decades I had to interview Bill Belichick at halftime, and he wasn’t always in a great mood,’ she told a crowd in Lakeville, Minnesota when asked if she’d get ‘rolled over’ in politics.
She also told one audience they would agree with her on ’98 percent’ of issues.
White was an Iowa State hoops star before his NBA career was derailed by his fear of flying
A 61-year-old married mother of two, Tafoya revealed her political beliefs a decade earlier when she described herself to Sports Illustrated as a ‘a pro-choice conservative.’ She remained with NBC’s Sunday Night Football coverage through 2021 when she stepped away to pursue other opportunities.
Tafoya now hosts an eponymous podcast focusing on a variety of topics.
White was the party’s candidate for Minnesota’s other Senate seat in 2024, but he lost to incumbent Amy Klobuchar in the general election. He has faced accusations of misogyny, homophobia and anti-Semitism during his brief political career.
He’s also losing support within the state GOP party amid more recent domestic violence allegations. On Friday, a Hennepin County judge ordered for White to cease contact with his ex-wife for 50 years and his teenage son for two years after leaving his family ‘plainly in fear.’
‘Mr. White should immediately suspend his campaign, address the personal and legal matters before him, and stop putting Republican voters and activists in the position of defending the indefensible,’ Republican Party of Minnesota Chair Alex Plechash said in a recent statement.
Both White and Schwarze have pledged to end their campaigns if they fail to win the support of Republican delegates, whereas Tafoya has held back from making that same promise.
White speaks during a protest outside the Hennepin County Government Center in 2020
And it’s that last decision that could undermine her with the state’s GOP. As explained by the Star Tribune, Republican delegates are suspicious of candidates who try to sidestep the endorsement process, as Pawlenty once did.
‘She was very defensive, kind of in an aggressive tone about that,’ 45-year-old mother Chasity Serocki told the Star Tribune. ‘And she says, “Well, why would I do that if you guys endorse Royce White? He’s not electable.”
‘If you don’t care what we have to say, do you care about what greater Minnesota has to say?’ Serocki asked.
The Minnesota GOP State Convention will be held in Duluth on May 29 and 30, while the primary election will take place on August 11.
As for the Democrats, US representative Angie Craig and lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan have both declared for the primary. Flanagan currently holds a slight edge, according to a number of polls.
