DAVID MARCUS: In deep blue Minnesota a red dawn may be rising ahead of the midterms

Six months ago, very few people imagined that this year’s senate and governor races in Minnesota would be anything but Democratic Party blowouts, but as we approach October, and the beating heart of the midterms, the Gopher state appears suddenly and stunningly in play.

Recent polling, as shoddy as this cycle’s surveys have been, show GOP senate candidate Michelle Tafoya within 2 or 3 points of her opponent, sitting Lt.

Gov.

Peggy Flannagan, and while the chaos surrounding the death of Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE is in the rearview mirror, the massive Somali fraud scandal decidedly is not.

On Sunday, I headed over to Cowboys Saloon in Lexington, Minn., just north of the Twin Cities, to attend a Vikings game watch party for local Republican volunteers, where I found Lisa Demuth, Speaker of the Minnesota House and candidate for governor, rallying the troops ahead of some door knocking and leafleting.

LEE CARTER: THE SUMMER POLLS MISSED THE POINT: VOTERS ARE MOVING — AND THE MIDTERMS BEGIN Demuth is running against sitting senator Amy Klobuchar for governor as the Minnesota Democrats play a high stakes game of political musical chairs, in which poor Gov.

Tim Walz has already lost his seat.

"We have heard from Minnesotans across the state," Demuth told Fox News Digital, "when we’ve been traveling, that they are ready for a change, it's nice to see the polling start to reflect that, but we were hearing voters ready for a change, ending fraud, making the state affordable, just all the desperate change we have needed." Minnesota’s GOP House Majority Leader, Harry Niska, was also on hand for the 9-3 Vikings victory and offered this explanation to the tightening races: "It’s not a surprise to those of us who have spent months talking to voters in Minnesota as more and more Minnesotans become aware of the billions of dollars that have been stolen from our taxpayers." 'WE HAVE NOT SLOWED DOWN': MINNESOTA NOT OUT OF THE WOODS ON MASSIVE FRAUD SCANDAL, EXPERT WARNS The fraud that Niska refers to is, of course, the ongoing scandal surrounding the Minneapolis community in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, that has been bilking tax dollars with fake learning centers and autism care, to the tune of a possible $9 billion, with a "B," dollars.

Indeed, the scandal, now long since a national story, was on the tongues of almost everyone I spoke to, of both parties, in the warm afterglow of the Vikings "W" once the canvassers had left to knock upon doors.