Ilhan Omar has been pulling out all the stops in recent days to stave off a Democratic primary challenger who nearly upset her just two years ago.
On Friday, Omar, a three-term congresswoman from Minneapolis, announced she has been endorsed by every member of the Minneapolis School Board, who represent a district that has seen its enrollment decline by 15 percent since 2020 and earlier this year faced a $110 million budget deficit.
While former Minneapolis City Councilmember Don Samuels is by no means a political moderate, he appears to be targeting (and attracting) voters across CD5 heading into his Tuesday, Aug. 13 primary rematch with Omar who are less than sympathetic to the politically far-left Minneapolis School Board.
Meanwhile, Samuels’ campaign published a press release Friday that alleges Omar has attempted to mislead voters that she has the support of Gov. Tim Walz and President Joe Biden.
“Rep. Ilhan Omar has been investing her campaign funds in advertising two high-profile endorsements that she does not, in fact, have—Governor Tim Walz and President Joe Biden,” Samuels said. “Despite being the party endorsed incumbent, Omar has not had the governor’s primary endorsement since 2020.”
But could a groundswell of Republicans across the mostly urban district be enough to help Samuels close the gap on Omar this Tuesday? A recent push on social media hopes to make that happen.
Samuels paints himself as rational alternative to a member of the ‘Squad’
Samuels, 75, has made it abundantly clear he supports the policies of the Biden-Harris administration and has told media in recent days he’s excited about the Harris-Walz presidential ticket.
But in a modern context, the well-known Minneapolis politician has worked hard to establish himself over the last two years as a more politically rational alternative to Omar, who has branded herself as one of the most polarizing far-left members of U.S. Congress since she arrived in Washington, D.C. in January 2019.
“We never stopped believing that change requires more than empty words,” Samuels said in a recent campaign ad he circulated on social media. “I know how to put people and progress over politics and self-interest.”
Those words are subtle but pointed shots at Omar, who has been criticized regularly for her inflammatory rhetoric on a number of issues and accused of enriching herself since she has been in Congress.
But will Samuels, a well-known community leader in North Minneapolis over the last several decades, be able to lean on the heavily DFL voting base in CD5 to upset Omar? Two recent Democratic primaries across the nation could serve as a bellwether.
Shortly after Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri received the news last week that she had lost her U.S. House re-election bid at the primary stage, she lashed out at her political opponents in front of supporters at a post-election night party.
“All you did was take some of the strings off,” said Bush, a two-term member of Congress who has represented her urban St. Louis district since 2021. “All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid.”
“They about to see this other Cori, this other side,” she added. “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”
Bush was referencing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which backed her primary opponent. Earlier this summer, U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., another member of the “Squad,” conceded his primary defeat to a more moderate opponent.
Omar is one of the original members of the “Squad,” a group of politically far left members of Congress who were elected in 2018 and have since become a small but vocal voting bloc.
Republican voters in CD5 outnumbered 3 to 1 in general election
Minnesota holds “open primaries,” which means regardless of which political party you are registered for—or whether you are registered for any political party at all—voters can participate in any political primary they wish. But they cannot vote in more than one party primary during the same election.
That means Republican voters in Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District—which includes all of Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Golden Valley, Richfield, Robbinsdale, Crystal, Brooklyn Center, New Hope and a portion of Edina—could choose to vote in a DFL primary on Tuesday, Aug. 13. If they do so, they would not be able to vote in the U.S. Senate GOP primary between Royce White and Joe Fraser.
White himself has called on Republicans in CD5 to cross over and vote for Samuels on Tuesday.
“Vote for Samuels if you’re in CD5, Everywhere else in the state vote Royce White for Senate!” said the Republican Party-endorsed White, of Minneapolis, last week.
Along with that, a handful of well-connected Republican voters across the district have told Alpha News that they know grassroots organizers are canvassing to generate crossover votes for Samuels.
In the 2022 DFL primary, a non-presidential election cycle, Omar edged Samuels by 2,466 votes out of more than 100,000 votes cast. Even Omar admitted that the outcome was a closer result than she expected.
In 2020, a presidential election year, Omar won her primary race against Antone Melton-Meaux by 20 percentage points out of more than 175,000 votes cast.
The question that remains is how many Republican voters are there in CD5, how many will show up for Tuesday’s primary and how many are Republican voters crossing over to vote for Samuels?
That depends.
In 2022, just under 10,000 voters participated in the CD5 Republican primary between Cicely Davis and Royce White, where Davis won by about 1,000 votes. In the general election that November, Davis earned 70,000 votes to Omar’s 214,000.
In 2020, Omar’s general election Republican opponent was Lacy Johnson. He earned nearly 103,000 votes. If a significant percentage of those 2020 Lacy Johnson votes were to show up on Tuesday and vote for Samuels, an upset is possible.
According to Federal Election Commission campaign finance records, Omar reported having $682,000 cash on hand at the end of July. Her campaign spent $6 million over the last seven months. Samuels reported he had $250,000 in cash on hand, and has spent $1.2 million since Jan. 1.
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
