CIVPAC has completed its review of the 2026 Minnesota U.S. Senate race between Peggy Flanagan and Michele Tafoya.

This is a different kind of non-endorsement.

We did not conclude that neither candidate is acceptable. Instead, our criteria point in different directions. Flanagan is closer to CIVPAC on issues including Ukraine and NATO, reproductive freedom and the value of divided government. Tafoya is closer on market economics, reduced taxes and regulation, law enforcement and limiting federal spending. Both also depart from CIVPAC in important ways, and several of Tafoya’s positions on major Senate issues remain insufficiently developed.

The result illustrates why political choices cannot always be reduced to a checklist. Two centrist independent voters could agree with every CIVPAC policy position—and even agree with our evaluation of both candidates—yet reasonably vote differently because they assign different weights to the competing issues.

Rather than manufacture an endorsement, we have tried to give Minnesota voters the information needed to make that judgment for themselves.

Read the full Minnesota U.S. Senate evaluation.

See CIVPAC’s complete 2026 endorsements and evaluations.

And if you know of additional candidate positions that would help resolve some of the unanswered questions, we invite you to comment. Better information could yet lead us to an endorsement.