Why the AP called the Minnesota 5th District primary for Rep. Ilhan Omar over Don Samuels

WASHINGTON — Rep. Ilhan Omar won the Democratic primary for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District on Tuesday, defeating former Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels in a rematch of the party’s 2022 primary. Omar improved her margins from 2022 in the district’s two largest counties, according to an Associated Press analysis of voting results at the time she was declared the winner.

Here’s a look at how the AP determined the winner:

CANDIDATES: Omar, Samuels, Abena McKenzie, Nate Schluter

WINNER: Omar

CALL AT: 10:40 PM ET

POLL CLOSING TIME: 9:00 PM ET

ABOUT THE RACE: The Democratic primary for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District is the third race in as many months in which a member of the U.S. House’s progressive “Team” has been challenged by a more centrist liberal. A week after U.S. Attorney Wesley Bell defeated Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, the second member of the team to lose a primary this year, Omar faced a rematch against Samuels. Samuels lost the 2022 Democratic primary to Omar by about 2,000 votes. In that race, as in this one, Samuels criticized Omar for divisive comments about Israel or those that invoked anti-Semitic tropes. But unlike Bush and New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, whose opponents benefited from American Israel Public Affairs Committee super PAC spending on their behalf, Omar had a spending advantage in her race. She has spent $6.2 million through Primary Election Day, nearly $5 million more than Samuels. In 2022, she spent $2.3 million before the primary to Samuels’ $1.4 million. District 5 is centered around Minneapolis and includes some of its western suburbs. It does not include St. Paul. Nearly 90 percent of the district’s residents live in Hennepin County, 8 percent in Anoka County, and the rest — usually just a few hundred votes — come from Ramsey County.

WHY AP CALLED THE RACE: Omar was first elected in 2018 to succeed retiring Rep. Keith Ellison. Her narrowest primary victory came against Samuels two years ago, when she lost the two smallest counties in the district but won the third — Hennepin — enough to make up for losses in Ramsey and Anoka. Omar won Hennepin County that year with 50.7 percent to Samuels’ 48 percent.

Samuel’s path to victory was winning at both Ramsey and Anoka and running much closer in Hennepin than he did two years ago. But on Tuesday, Omar was slightly ahead in Anoka County when the Hennepin results were released — and they put her ahead by more than 13 percentage points. Ramsey has not yet reported the results, but the county reported only 389 total votes cast in the 2022 primary — not enough for Samuels to catch up.

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Associated Press writer Robert Yoon in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.