Former NBC Reporter Michele Tafoya Files to Run for Senate

Former NBC and ESPN sportscaster Michele Tafoya filed paperwork Tuesday to run for Senate in Minnesota as a Republican.

Tafoya would be running for the seat vacated by Democrat Sen. Tina Smith, who is not seeking reelection. Smith first won the seat after Sen. Al Franken resigned in 2018, and subsequently won a full term in 2020. 

Tafoya did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Front Office Sports. 

Tafoya stepped away from her role as a sideline reporter for NBC’s Sunday Night Football, which she’d held for more than a decade, in 2022 to pursue a career in politics.  

“I got to a point in my life where I wanted to try other things, and there are some things that are really important to me,” she told sports media reporter Richard Deitsch at the time. “This is not to say that sports isn’t an important field, that my job isn’t an important job. But in my position, I was not as free to be as vocal about world events that I’m concerned about. It’s not because I was told to shut up. I want to be very clear about that. But look, if you’re on a show like Sunday Night Football, which is the No. 1 show in prime time for 11 straight years, unprecedented, the last thing they want to do is invite controversy.”

Other candidates in the Republican primary in the Minnesota Senate race include former NBA player Royce White, former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze, retired Navy officer Tom Weiler, and former Minnesota Senate minority leader David Hann. 

If she wins the primary, Tafoya would have a challenge in the general election, as The Hill notes a Republican has not won a statewide race in Minnesota since Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2006.

In announcing her candidacy on X/Twitter, Tafoya posted Wednesday: “For years, I walked the sidelines when the stakes were the highest, and that job taught me how leadership really works. I’m running for U.S. Senate to bring that experience to Washington and deliver the real results Minnesota deserves.”