MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Republican U.S. Senate nominee Michele Tafoya told a local radio interviewer earlier this month that she had never said she was embarrassed to be from Minnesota.
But a since-deleted 2023 post on X, resurfaced Wednesday by CNN's KFile team, shows the former sports broadcaster saying exactly that.
"I'm embarrassed to say I live in Minnesota," Tafoya wrote in March 2023, adding a jab about how far left the state had drifted.
When another user suggested she could leave, she replied that was "the plan" and said she was weighing a move to Tennessee.
CNN's review found Tafoya told followers at least four times over the past three years, on social media and her podcast, that she intended to leave the state, often calling herself a part-time Floridian and holding up Florida as a conservative model.
It's not the first time the word has surfaced in her campaign.
The day after the Aug. 11 primary, Tafoya told Fox News that hundreds of Minnesota voters had confided they were embarrassed to say where they were from while on vacation, The Hill reported.
Tafoya faces DFL Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in November for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Tina Smith.
Polls show the race has tightened into a dead heat, according to a new KSTP/SurveyUSA poll.
Flanagan has served as lieutenant governor since 2019, the same period in which the Feeding Our Future scheme and other large fraud cases unfolded under the Walz administration.
Tafoya has made that record a centerpiece of her campaign.
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