Representative Ilhan Omar beat back a primary challenge Tuesday from repeat rival former Minneapolis City Councilmember Don Samuels, this time with a wider margin than in 2022.
The district includes the entire city of Minneapolis and nine other surrounding suburbs. 15% of the 707,000 people that live in the district are foreign-born, according to Census data, with half of the foreign-born coming from Sub-Saharan Africa.
Ms. Omar defeated Mr. Samuels by garnering 56% of the vote to Samuels’43%, a convincing margin than happened in 2022 when Samuels came within two percentage points of defeating her.
“We had an opponent who was willing to align with literal Nazis in order to defeat us, that weaponized and scandalized my husband, and my daughter and I hope they reflect on the shameful way that they decided to divide our district and the incredible people that we represent,” Ms. Omar said at an election night watch party.
Omar was first elected in 2018 to the open Fifth Congressional District seat formerly held by current Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, making her one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress alongside Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. She overcame a Democratic primary in 2020 from the well-funded Antone Melton-Meaux, who raised millions of dollars, to return to Congress. In her reelection bid for a third term in 2022, she got a primary challenger again, this time from Don Samuels and narrowly beat him by just 2,466 votes.
Rep. Omar is a member of The Squad – an informal group of progressive members of Congress. Pro-Israel groups like AIPAC recently poured millions of dollars to defeat two members of the squad in their primary races, New Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri, by backing their moderate challengers. Samuels, who considers himself in the same ilk as those who defeated Bowman and Bush, was not able to attract a similar cash trove in his bid to dislodge Omar.
Signs of an Omar win started becoming clear when pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, opted not to invest in the Omar-Samuels rematch, this after AIPAC boasted last week on its X account that 100% of the 104 Democrats it backed in this election cycle won their primaries.
After the 2022 scare, Omar took this year’s primary challenge seriously, spending heavily in advertising and get out the vote efforts, which included bringing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to campaign with her.
She out raised Samuels considerably, posting very strong fund-raising numbers. The nonpartisan Open Secrets nonprofit that tracks money in American politics, reported the Omar campaign had raised over $6.4 million in the current election cycle and had a cash on hand amounting to $1.8 million by the June 30 campaign finance filing required by law. Samuels on the other hand had raised $1.2 million in the same cycle and had 334,382 cash on hand.
As the campaign for the Fifth gained steam, Omar racked up major Union endorsements following her Party endorsement in May and a formal endorsement from the state party chair Ken Martin, including most of the mayors in her in district.
Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd at Nighthawks in south Minneapolis on Tuesday night at the watch party, Rep. Omar also thanked supporters for turning out in large numbers to defeat efforts by Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary to defeat her.
“We would not have been able to overcome the Republican effort to influence our primary without the help of the mayors,” she said, to loud cheers.
Mr. Samuels issued a statement after his second defeat to Rep. Omar that said he believes the results showed “are hungry for a different approach to leadership.”
“Taking on an incumbent, let alone a party-endorsed incumbent, with a national fundraising base is a Herculean task,” said Samuels in his statement.
Rep. Omar’s primary win makes her the highly favored candidate to win in November – as it has been 64 years since the district last elected a Republican.
Omar will face Republican challenger Dalia Al-Aqidi in the Nov. 5 general election. Al-Aqidi ran unopposed in Tuesday’s Republican primary receiving 3,380 votes. By comparison Rep. Omar received 67,920 votes to Samuels’s 51.839. Two other candidates in the Democratic primary, Abena McKenzie and Nate Schluter each received less than one percent of the vote.
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About Tom Gitaa Gitaa, Editor-in-Chief
Born and raised in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa, Tom is the Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Mshale which has been reporting on the news and culture of African immigrants in the United States since 1995. He has a BA in Business from Metro State University and a Public Leadership Credential from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He was the original host of Talking Drum, the signature current affairs show on the African Broadcasting Network (ABN-America), which was available nationwide in the United States via the Dish Network satellite service. On the show, he interviewed Nobel laureates such as 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner, Professor Wangari Maathai, the first woman from Africa to win the peace prize and heads of states. Tom has served and chaired various boards including Global Minnesota (formerly Minnesota International Center), the sixth largest World Affairs Council in the United States. He has previously served as the first Black President of the Board of Directors at Books for Africa. He also serves on the boards of New Vision Foundation and the Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium. He has previously served two terms on the board of the United Nations Association. An avid runner, he retired from running full marathons after turning 50 and now only focuses on training for half marathons.
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