As the once-long shot Minnesota GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya has closed in on Democratic opponent Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the issue of President Donald Trump — who is not particularly popular in the Gopher State — has taken a unique turn.
For Tafoya, as well as gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth and others down ballot for the GOP — not to mention their potential voters — the general attitude toward Trump is that while they support much of what he has done, they also represent what a post-Donald Trump Republican Party could look like.
This week in St. Cloud, I met John, who was sitting in his SUV outside the courthouse. Covered in pro-Trump stickers and flags, the vehicle served as a kind of quiet, solo demonstration.
I mentioned to him that his "Trump 2028" flag, in particular, seemed a bit provocative. He told me, "Well, I know he’s not really going to run again, I don’t think he legally can, but that’s just more for comedy and just for fun," adding that he thinks Vice President JD Vance is a great choice to run next, perhaps with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his running mate.
When I asked whether he thought that Tafoya and Demuth should embrace Trump more, John told me, "That's the problem with Minnesota [Republicans]. We need to be hardcore Trump, not lukewarm, and I think that’s kind of biting them in the butt, they've got to be all in."
Bob, who I had chatted with the night before, along with his wife Mary, were a counterpoint that showed the eye of the needle the Minnesota GOP needs to thread. He’s retired from banking and is now a soybean farmer with mixed and nuanced views on Trump and especially his tariff regime.
"The tariffs hurt us," Bob confided to Fox News Digital, but added that "the administration provided subsidies, we got about $40, 000 dollars last year that helped us stay afloat."
But Bob also pointed out that things weren’t perfect before the tariffs, when it seemed countries like China were simply taking advantage of American farmers.
Likewise, Scott, a man in his 60 s, who I met as he was walking his dog amid the pretty, old brick buildings of solid Midwestern St. Cloud, is far from a Trump supporter, but is considering the GOP this year because of the Somali fraud scandal , which he said he has seen close up in his town.
"They don’t work," Scott scoffed, before adding, "But you see them in these shiny new cars, we all knew something was going on way before it hit the news, it was just obvious."
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The Somali fraud question can cut both ways, though, as the manager of the restaurant where I had lunch made clear. He told me that the crackdown in St. Cloud was "extreme," and that he rarely protests, but did in this case, getting pepper sprayed for his trouble.
But, when I asked if the enforcement has been less aggressive over the past few months, he was quick to admit that, "Yes, it has calmed down a lot."
When you put the above pieces of the Minnesota electoral mosaic together, it becomes clear why it behooves Tafoya and Demuth to keep Trump at arm’s length, without fully breaking with him: to embrace clear successes like the closed-up southern border and no tax on overtime, while questioning less popular measures such as tariffs and the Iran war.
And, after all, should Tafoya win, her four or six-year term will be under a president who is not Trump. Likewise, should Demuth serve two terms in the governor’s mansion, six of the eight years will see a new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
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Gentle pushback on the POTUS is becoming something of a national trend for GOP Senate candidates, with both Michigan’s Mike Rogers and Iowa’s Ashley Hinson calling this week for an abrupt end to Trump’s military actions in Iran.
Just was as true at the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas two weeks ago. The firm subtext of the tight races this year is: What comes after Donald Trump? With the Democratic Party hurtling toward socialism all over the map, many Republicans think Tafoya is a sensible centrist who can grow the brand over the next decade.
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For their part, expect Democrats in Minnesota like Flanagan and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is running for governor, to keep pounding away at Trump like Rocky attacking Apollo Creed’s midsection. They seek anything but a nuanced and thoughtful race — they just want rage against the "orange man."
But maybe, just maybe, more than a decade after Trump descended the golden escalator, American politics is once again becoming bigger than him. If that is so, Democrats will need more than name-calling to defeat this new moderate, Midwestern breed of Republican.