As Democrats fight to regain control of the US Senate, hopes are rising in states – from Kansas to Texas – where they have not prevailed in decades. But in Minnesota, where Republicans have not won statewide election since 2006, the contest for an open Senate seat is closer than expected.

Should Peggy Flanagan – the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor – win the election, she will be the first Native American woman to serve in the US Senate. But history has not yet been made. The closely watched Cook Political Report shifted its rating on the race this week from “likely Democrat” to “lean Democrat”.

Flanagan has made hundreds of stops throughout Minnesota this year, first in a contested primary where she beat out a more moderate congresswoman, and now as she faces Republican challenger Michele Tafoya.

Tafoya, a more pragmatic choice for Minnesota Republicans than in previous US Senate elections, has sought to cast herself as a pro-choice Republican, though she has not spelled out what her stance is on access to abortion. She has also broken rank with the Trump administration on the Iran war after previously supporting it.

Unlike some Republicans who have sought Trump’s support,Tafoya didn’t rush to embrace the president’s recent endorsement. “I heard about that,” she said.

Most polls have shown Flanagan ahead – but not with a large lead, and lagging behind those built by Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic US senator now running for governor, in polls against her challenger, Minnesota house speaker Lisa Demuth. The most recent poll by the Minnesota Star Tribune earlier this month showed Flanagan up four points.

Flanagan’s central liability comes from her current job. As the lieutenant governor in Tim Walz’s administration, she is tied into a sprawling fraud problem in the state’s social services. Without an incumbent on the ballot for governor or US Senate, some voters may take out their frustration on Flanagan.

Walz decided not to seek a third term as governor, after initially saying he would, because of the fraud issue and the political response to it.

Republicans have not won a statewide race in Minnesota in 20 years. “There is a path. It’s not a wide path, but there is a path for Republicans,” said Blois Olson, an independent political analyst in Minnesota.

While Minnesota Democrats have dominated statewide races the past two decades, the state is not deeply blue: the state legislature is now split, with the house tied and Democrats controlling the senate. Some see Flanagan, a progressive who supports the proposed Medicare for All model of universal healthcare, as farther left than the statewide electorate.

“It sets up a race where Republicans are as optimistic as anything,” Olson said. “But until Republicans win statewide, you can’t think they’re going to win. It’s kind of like Democrats in Texas.”

Trump’s approval rating among Minnesotans is at a personal low. His surge of immigration agents into the state sits heavy on the minds of many, and features in campaign ads against Republicans. Two US citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge earlier this year.

Trump has continued to attack the state, and its leaders, and often rails against the state’s Somali population. In the only debate for Minnesota’s US Senate seat ahead of the general election, Tafoya wouldn’t say whether she would attend if Trump staged a rally in the state.

National Republicans have so far not swooped in to boost Tafoya – a signal that the race is not a top priority, or that their money is more needed to defend their seats in unexpected places, including Kansas.

Flanagan, at a union press conference earlier this month, said she always runs for office as though she’s 10 points behind, including when she ran unopposed for the state legislature, when she still knocked doors most nights. In the primary, she noted, polls showed a close race between her and Craig, but Flanagan won by nearly 20 percentage points.

“I’ve always been underestimated, and that’s OK. That just means I work a little bit harder,” she said. “And frankly, there are more people in the state of Minnesota who understand that they are being squeezed, and when the response to that pain from my opponent is to say that people should take one less trip to Starbucks and keep a stiff upper lip, that is a slap in the face to working people all across Minnesota.”

Tafoya did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Signs for Tafoya dot the yards of the Twin Cities suburbs. Olson, the analyst, said he heard from people who knock on doors to talk to voters that the conversations at people’s doors in swing districts after the primary changed.

“I have somebody to vote for, and it’s not Mike Lindell,” he said, explaining how some Republicans felt about the pillow salesman and election denier who lost the party’s gubernatorial primary. Lindell had been endorsed by Trump.

Voters are getting hit with ads on social media from Flanagan, too, who talks about the competitiveness of the race and offers up her wild rice hotdish recipe to anyone who donates to her campaign.

Tafoya, 61, made her career as a sports broadcaster, and worked for NBC as a sideline reporter covering the NFL. After she left that job, shebecame a political commentator. She has never run for, or held, elected office.

Flanagan, 47, has, by contrast, spent her career in politics – first as an organizer and then working her way up in elected offices, from school board to state legislature and then to lieutenant governorship.

Tina Smith, the Democrat who now holds the US Senate seat, decided not to seek re-election this year, saying she wanted to retire and spend time with her grandchildren. Smith endorsed Flanagan in the primary and has campaigned with her.

Tafoya, needing independent and centrist votes to win in a left-leaning state, calls herself a pro-choice conservative. In her prior public comments on abortion, she has said she supports bans on abortion after 12 or 15 weeks.

During the debate, hosted by Minnesota Public Radio last week, she could not explain what her position entailed. “Reasonable access is reasonable access,” she said.

Republicans in Minnesota need the anti-abortion community’s votes, as well as those of gun rights advocates and diehard Trump supporters, said Michael Brodkorb, a commentator and former deputy chair of the Republican party of Minnesota. Some, including a prominent pastor, have said they will not vote for Tafoya because of her approval of abortion to any degree. A write-in candidate is running for the seat in large part because she wanted voters to have an anti-abortion option on the ballot.

In her most recent ad, Tafoya says she’ll stand up to Trump if she needs to. “If she had delivered that message from the beginning, then it would be more credible,” Brodkorb said.

On fraud, Flanagan has said she believes fraud of any kind is unacceptable and supports harsher penalties and an independent inspector general. But, she has said throughout her campaign, Walz has said the buck stops with him on fraud.

One of the central questions for voters lies in someone who isn’t on the ballot: Trump, and whether the state’s next senator would provide a check on presidential power. Flanagan has said Tafoya would be a rubber stamp for the president, citing her opponent’s previous reluctance to publicly differ from Trump’s positions. Tafoya has said she would be an “equal-opportunity pain in the ass to any corrupt career politician”.

“You have to vote for Michele Tafoya, who is a very respected person,” Trump said when he recently endorsed Tafoya. “It’s hard to win because they cheat on their elections too, you know I thought I won Minnesota three times.”

Trump lost Minnesota three times. Minnesota has not voted for a Republican president since 1972.

As soon as Trump endorsed Tafoya, Flanagan put up a campaign ad highlighting the endorsement, his stamp of approval a likely negative for a swath of Minnesota voters.