Apple News and Google News buried every negative story about Democrat Graham Platner while he ran for Senate in Maine.
Two weeks before Minnesota votes, the same two apps are protecting another Democrat Senate candidate with a record just as damaging.
A new MRC report just caught them in a nine-month blackout – and what they buried could flip the race.
Meet Peggy Flanagan the Democrat Apple News and Google News Are Protecting in Minnesota
Peggy Flanagan is Tim Walz's lieutenant governor – the same Tim Walz whose administration looked the other way on massive fraud in Minnesota.
She beat establishment Democrat Angie Craig in the August primary on a platform of abolishing ICE and Medicare for All.
Her Republican opponent is Michele Tafoya – the former NBC Sunday Night Football sideline reporter who walked away from the network over COVID mandates and has spent the general election making Flanagan's fraud record the central issue in the race.
The race to replace retiring Democrat Tina Smith has no business being competitive.
Minnesota hasn't sent a Republican to the Senate in decades.
But Flanagan is stuck at 45 to 47 percent, Tafoya is within 4 points, and the race keeps tightening.
Apple and Google decided that race needed their protection.
Apple News Bias Documented for the Third Time in One Election Cycle
The Media Research Center just released a special report catching Apple News and Google News in a nine-month blackout of Peggy Flanagan's scandals.
Neither platform promoted a single story about Flanagan's scandals between January 1 and October 7 – not one, out of 72 published articles across major outlets that should have cleared any reasonable news threshold.
Apple and Google News reach over 210 million American users every month, and every one of them was shielded from Flanagan's record.
MRC has now caught this same play against three Democrat Senate candidates in a single election cycle: Graham Platner in Maine, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and now Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota.
When MRC exposed the Platner suppression earlier this year, Google called the methodology "totally false."
They're saying the same thing now.
The Peggy Flanagan Fraud Scandal Apple News and Google News Refused to Cover
As lieutenant governor, Flanagan sat in cabinet meetings about Minnesota's fraud epidemic – hundreds of millions of dollars looted from programs meant to feed children.
She told the Minnesota Star Tribune that Walz "took the lead on fraud" – the same evasion her own primary opponent Angie Craig hammered her on throughout the campaign.
Flanagan scrubbed 12,624 posts from her X account – fifteen years of her most radical statements, quietly removed before launching her Senate campaign.
Her deleted posts attacked Thanksgiving, Christopher Columbus, and children who wore Halloween costumes she deemed racist stereotypes. She defended men competing in women's sports and compared Beyoncé to Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
On the night she won the primary, Flanagan called for ripping ICE apart – not reforming it, not restructuring it, tearing it down completely.
She told Fox 9 that ICE should get no more funding and called for agents to be held personally accountable for enforcement operations in Minnesota.
The White House called that language "inflammatory."
Apple and Google called it unworthy of their morning feeds.
Flanagan's own longtime political ally – the man she served under for seven years – refused to endorse her Senate bid.
His wife, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz, backed Flanagan's primary opponent instead.
Walz allies accused her of grabbing credit for wins she had nothing to do with, while running from every question about the fraud disaster she was supposed to help prevent.
Apple and Google decided 210 million users didn't need to know about her.
Apple News and Google News Minnesota Blackout Is Big Tech Election Interference
Apple News and Google News are not passive pipes – someone made a deliberate choice to bury 72 stories about a Senate candidate's fraud ties, deleted radical posts, and demands to abolish ICE.
MRC documented that both platforms ran stories about Republican scandals during the same period – including Ken Paxton in Texas and disgraced Rep. Tony Gonzales – and buried every one of Flanagan's.
Tafoya has spent months hammering Flanagan over the fraud scandal – and Apple and Google spent those same nine months burying every story that proved her right.
Tafoya trails by 3 to 6 points – a margin that closes fast if Minnesota voters learn what Flanagan said on camera, what she quietly deleted, and what she still refuses to explain about the fraud on her watch.
They made their choice before a single vote was cast.
Minnesota votes November 3.
Sources:
- Luis Cornelio, "Special Report: Apple & Google News Silence Peggy Flanagan Scandals as Midterms Loom," NewsBusters, October 19, 2026.
- Staff, "Democratic Senate Hopeful Pushes 'Ripping ICE Apart'," Fox News Digital, August 2026.
- Staff, "Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan Says 'We Have to Rip ICE Apart'," Fox 9, August 2026.
- Staff, "Walz Deputy Erupts at ICE and Fellow Dem, Torches Laken Riley Act in Fiery Tweetstorm as Scandals Pile Up," Fox News Digital, 2026.
- Staff, "Big Tech Companies Worked to Conceal Negative News Reports About Graham Platner," Townhall, 2026.
