A well-known National Football League (NFL) sideline reporter who formerly worked for NBC has ditched her gig covering professional sports to join the campaign of a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate.
“Sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya will be joining my campaign as co-chairwoman! I’m excited to work with Michele & hope you’ll join us as we focus on saving Minnesota,” candidate Kendall Qualls announced Monday on social media.
Tafoya ended her career as a broadcaster during Sunday night’s Super Bowl LVI.
She was saluted by fellow NBC broadcasters Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth after the game.
“We love you. You’ve been so much fun,” Michaels said.
“You’re the best. You are just the best,” Collinsworth said.
Tafoya, who lives in Edina, will join David Frauenshuh as co-chair of Qualls’ campaign.
“After taking a step back from the sports broadcasting world, I’m honored that my next phase involves supporting Kendall for his run for governor of Minnesota,” Tafoya said of her new role. “Kendall has a clear message that resonates with the issues Minnesotans face under the current administration.”
She gave an exclusive interview to The Athletic further explaining her decision:
This is all my decision. Everyone at NBC will back me up on that. They have always told me I can stay as long as I want. For me, I have to make my move while I’ve still got the energy to do other things and have an impact. I don’t want to wait.
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. But in my position, I was not as free to be as vocal about world events that I’m concerned about.
Qualls is an Army veteran whose campaign website says he’s gone from “poverty to prosperity, literally from the projects of Harlem and a trailer park in Oklahoma to become Vice President of a Fortune 100 company.”
Qualls, who is black, says he is running to return law and order to the streets, describing Minnesota as “ground zero ” for “riots, looting and ‘Defund the Police,'” and because he feels that the political Left is bullying conservatives with constant accusations of “systemic racism.”
“In fact, this is the least racist period in our country’s history. My parents and grandparents would have loved to have grown up in the America I grew up in,” his site says.
Qualls is one of seven candidates running in a primary race to become Minnesota’s next governor. That election will be held on August 9.
He faces stiff competition in former State Senator Scott Jensen (R-District 47) who led the field in the latest straw poll.
The eventual winner of the primary will face off against Gov. Tim Walz (D).
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Minnesota Sun and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Michele Tafoya” by Michele Tafoya.
