In 2008, Al Franken beat Norm Coleman by 312 votes out of nearly 2.9 million. A Daily Wire roundtable called it a theft — and in the same breath declined to argue it.

We checked the claim: mostly false. Truth score 0.12, confidence 0.90.

On the 14 August 2026 "Friendly Fire" episode carried on The Michael Knowles Show feed, a speaker sent off Minnesota Senate candidate Michele Tafoya by noting the state had Republican senators "before the Democrats stole it," said "a dispute for another time," then asserted "they did totally steal that" anyway. Our diarization does not resolve which of the four hosts spoke, so we don't name one.

The strongest case for the claim is arithmetic: Minnesota Majority alleged at least 341 ineligible felons voted in two counties, and Byron York later escalated that to 1,099 statewide — both larger than  ...