From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Ilhan Omar looks to avoid fate of fellow Squad lawmakers in primary
Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the progressive House members known as the “Squad” and a sharp critic of how Israel has conducted the war in Gaza, is trying to avoid the fate of two of her closest allies when Minnesota holds its primary elections today.
Omar is defending her Minneapolis-area 5th District seat against a repeat challenge from former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, a more centrist liberal whom she only narrowly defeated in the 2022 primary.
Omar’s fellow Squad member Rep. Cori Bush lost the Democratic nomination in Missouri last week. Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York lost his primary in June. The only charter member not facing a primary challenge is Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Both Bush and Bowman faced well-funded challengers and millions of dollars in spending by the United Democracy Project, a super political action committee affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which appears to be sitting out the Minnesota race.
But Omar isn’t taking victory for granted. Omar reported spending $2.3 million before the 2022 primary. In the same period this year, she reported raising about $6.2 million. Samuels has raised about $1.4 million.
Omar — a Somali American and Muslim — came under fire from the Jamaican-born Samuels and others in her first term for comments that were widely criticized for invoking antisemitic tropes and suggesting Jewish Americans have divided loyalties. This time, Samuels has criticized her condemnation of the Israeli government’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
While Omar has also criticized Hamas for attacking Israel and taking hostages, Samuels says she’s one-sided and divisive. He’s also been stressing the public safety issues he focused on in 2022. The big issue at the time was policing in Minneapolis, where a former police officer murdered George Floyd in 2020.
The winner in the overwhelmingly Democratic district will face Republican Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American journalist and self-described secular Muslim who calls Omar pro-Hamas and a terrorist sympathizer.
