By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Democrat Peggy Flanagan won Minnesota’s US Senate race on Tuesday, US media outlets projected.
Flanagan, the state’s lieutenant governor, defeated Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL television journalist, extending Democrats’ Senate winning streak in a state that has not elected a Republican senator since 2002.
The victory does not improve the Democrats’ Senate math but prevents it from getting worse: they must net four seats to control the 100-seat chamber, and Flanagan will succeed retiring Democratic Senator Tina Smith.
Tafoya had sought to distance herself from some of President Donald Trump’s policies.
Flanagan campaigned against Trump’s immigration crackdown, which brought thousands of masked federal agents to Minnesota and led to the shooting deaths of two US citizens in Minneapolis.
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Howard Goller)
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