Flanagan defeats Tafoya as blue wave that washed over the nation hits Minnesota

WASHINGTON –  Gov. Peggy Flanagan was declared the winner in the contest for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat after a bitter campaign against Michele Tafoya that often turned personal. 

“You just beat Donald Trump again and you know what? America did too,” Flanagan said in her acceptance speech.

Flanagan said Minnesotans were the first to begin to demand change with their resistance to Operation Metro Surge. “When a president sent thugs to the state, you sent his private army packing,” she said, to sporadic cheers of “Peggy, Peggy, Peggy.”

Flanagan, who credits her progressive ideology to the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, will be the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. The Democrat is ...