Progressive 'Team' Ilhan Omar wins Minnesota primary

Steve Karnowski
| Associated Press

Minneapolis – Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the progressive members of the House known as “The Team” and a sharp critic of Israel’s handling of the Gaza war, won his primary race in Minnesota.

Omar successfully defended his Minneapolis-area 5th District seat against a repeated challenge from former Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels, a more centrist liberal whom he narrowly defeated in the 2022 primary.

Speaking to supporters in Minneapolis, Omar echoed some of the themes of the Harris-Walz presidential campaign.

“We run the politics of joy,” she said. “For we know that it is joy to fight for your neighbors. … We know he is happy to make sure that housing is a human right. We know it’s fun to fight to make health care a human right. We know it is joyful to want to live in a peaceful and just world.”

Omar avoided the fate of two teammates. Rep. Cori Bush lost the Democratic nomination in her Missouri district last week, and Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York lost the primary in June. Both faced well-funded opponents and millions of dollars in spending from the United Democracy Project, a super political action committee affiliated with the American Public Affairs Committee in Israel, which appeared to be out of the Minnesota race.

Samuels had criticized Omar’s condemnation of the Israeli government’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. He also highlighted public safety issues in Minneapolis, where a former police officer killed George Floyd in 2020.

Samuels said he was “very disappointed” in his loss.

“What we were hoping for is that a strong ground game and attention to detail for people who felt left out would overcome an overwhelming dollar superiority,” he said in an interview. “It’s clear that money matters a little more in politics than we’d hoped.”

Omar will face Republican Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi-American journalist and self-described secular Muslim, who calls Omar pro-Hamas.

Meanwhile, conservative populist and former NBA player Royce White defeated Marine veteran Joe Fraser in the Minnesota primary for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November.

And former U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab, backed by former President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the National Republican Congressional Committee, won a contested GOP primary for Minnesota’s 2nd District seat, held by Democratic Rep. Angie Craig.

His opponent, defense attorney Tayler Rahm, won the endorsement at the district convention with the support of grassroots conservatives.

While Rahm announced in July that he was suspending his campaign and would instead serve as a senior adviser to Trump’s Minnesota campaign, he remained on the ballot.

Teirab will face Craig in what is expected to be Minnesota’s most competitive House race in November.

Craig issued a statement following Teirab’s win, calling him “a guy who recently moved into the district because he saw a political opportunity.”

“He’s a guy who spent months doing whatever it took to win the support of Republicans in Washington,” Craig said. “And he’s a guy who has made it his life’s mission to take reproductive freedoms away from families and give those decisions to politicians.”

In the US Senate race, White — an ally of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — shocked many political observers when he defeated Fraser at the party convention for the GOP endorsement.

White’s comments on social media have been denounced as misogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic and profane. His legal and financial issues include unpaid child support and questionable campaign expenses, including $1,200 spent at a strip club in Florida, after he lost his primary challenge to Omar in 2022. He claims that as a man of color, can broaden the party’s base by appealing. black voters in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and others were disappointed with the policy of the institution.

After the win, White said in a post on social platform X: “Bring it to the boards… The People Are Coming.”

Progressive ‘Team’ Ilhan Omar wins Minnesota primary

By Matthew. Jr

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