The Minnesota senate race is polling unusually close as the state enters the midterms' homestretch. Republicans are sharply criticizing the state’s Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan for welfare fraud under the Walz administration’s watch, hoping that tying her to the scandals will help decide the race that could be an unexpected pickup opportunity for Republicans in the midterms.

The most recent polling in the Minnesota race shows Republican Michelle Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter, tied with current Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, and the race is tightening. After the primary elections earlier this year, Flanagan held about a five-point lead over Tafoya. That lead has now evaporated about a month and a half out from the election. While Tafoya has adopted the usual Republican framing on issues like immigration, crime, and tax cuts, she has seized upon the recent welfare fraud scandals in the blue state to hammer her opponent. 

Congress says Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were long aware of widespread fraud, but merely retaliated against whistleblowers 

After the scandal broke, Gov. Tim Walz and his administration, including Flanagan, were quick to be seen at the center of federal efforts to combat welfare fraud, specifically in social services programs. A congressional investigation found many senior Minnesota government officials, including Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, were aware of claims of widespread fraud in the state’s federally funded welfare programs for years, but failed to act other than to retaliate against whistleblowers. Walz elected not to run for reelection in the wake of the findings, acknowledging the toll the fraud scandals took on his administration. 

Tafoya and her Republican allies have sought to associate the scandals with Flanagan, who served under Walz when the fraud was apparently uncovered, but little action was taken to stop it. The first national reporting uncovering the fraud — mostly widespread in the immigrant Somali community — was citizen journalist Nick Shirley's reports that became viral. Shirley later testified before a congressional committee.

"She walked side by side with Walz as this massive fraud took over our state"

“When you talk about our Senate race, the polls say Michelle Tafoya is tied, and some put her two up against Peggy Flanagan. Remember, Peggy Flanagan [is] the lieutenant governor. She walked side by side with Walz as this massive fraud took over our state, and now she's trying to distance herself,” Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., told the Just the News, No Noise TV show. 

“You can't do that. She was with Walz step and step, and Michelle Tafoya and the Republicans in the state of Minnesota are holding the Walz administration and the Flanagan administration accountable for this disastrous billions of dollars of fraud that they perpetrated upon the Minnesota taxpayers,” he added. 

Tafoya said that the state’s leading Democrats have to be held accountable for failing to address the fraud to send a message to perpetrators. “They know they have a place here in Minnesota where they can commit this fraud,” Tafoya said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. “Because no one has been held accountable. It’s remarkable.” 

The campaign against fraud appears to be resonating with voters. In the RealClearPolitics average of Minnesota Senate polls, Flanagan leads Tafoya by 1.8 percentage points. The polls also appear to show that the race is tightening as the midterms approach. The first surveys shortly after the primary election last month had Tafoya trailing by between two and four points, but the most recent show the GOP candidate in a statistical tie. 

Flanagan has tried to distance herself from the welfare fraud scandals during the campaign in an effort to blunt Tafoya’s criticisms. She said she was “appalled by the fraud” and touted the Walz administration’s efforts to reform the system after public reporting uncovered the scandals. 

“The governor has taken the lead here. And the administration has been aggressive internally in working to stop fraud, prevent it from happening in the first place,” Flanagan said during a primary debate in July.

The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation last December into allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s public benefits programs after fresh evidence of daycare fraud in the state’s federally-funded childcare benefits program surfaced that month; the months-long probe would upend Minnesota politics and push Gov. Walz to end his campaign. 

The video evidence showing empty daycare facilities registered to serve hundreds of children echoed warnings from the state’s legislative auditor dating back to 2018 that there were persistent signs of fraud in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, Just the News reported.

The investigation also centered on a Minneapolis fraud ring connected to the state’s Somali immigrant community and revealed by Nick Shirley. That fraud exploited the state’s federally-funded food program and the Department of Justice first charged 47 people in 2021 as part of a $250 million scheme involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future that prosecutors alleged diverted federal COVID-19 relief funds for personal gain.  

Walz, who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2024, previously acknowledged there is fraud in his state, but said his administration has made it a priority to root it out for years. 

However, the Oversight Committee said it believes the evidence shows the opposite, that Walz and his senior officials knew about the fraud concerns from the very beginning of his tenure and ultimately failed to act to address it before facing public backlash and pressure from the federal government in recent months. 

House investigators accused Walz and his administration of retaliating against employees who raised concerns about fraud

That evidence came from testimony gathered by the committee from nine current and former Minnesota state officials that oversaw the benefits programs within the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Department of Human Services (DHS), the two government bodies that oversaw the programs at the center of the fraud allegations. Officials testified that Walz’s office would have been made aware of fraud concerns in the programs, likely earlier than he claimed, from the earliest days of his administration, Just the News previously reported. House investigators also accused Walz and his administration of retaliating against employees who tried to raise concerns about fraud in the welfare programs. 

The committee’s final report said the federal government has determined that at least $300 million was stolen by Feeding Our Future and its affiliated vendors and providers from the USDA's federal child nutrition programs and an estimated $9 billion has been lost to fraud from the high-risk Medicaid programs in Minnesota since 2018.