The “Minneapolis Mamdani” won’t let racist attacks stop him

Omar Fateh steadied himself before the camera and flashed a smile between heavy blinks, the weight of a nearly sleepless night tugging at his eyelids. This interview — first slated for the week prior — had been rescheduled in the wake of a major life change. The two-term Minnesota state senator and his wife welcomed a new baby, a son they named Imran, in early August.

“I pulled almost an all-nighter last night, so he’s been keeping us up,” he said, exhaling a light chuckle. He also has plenty of other reasons to be tired.

The 35-year-old is running for mayor of Minneapolis, one half of the Twin Cities he’s called home for 10 years. He’s the leading candidate facing off against two-term incumbent mayor Jacob Frey, who has the backing of the Democratic establishment and its donors. Oh, and he’s a proud Democratic socialist, an affiliation that’s brought him comparisons to New York’s own mayoral frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani, and a world of criticism from people across the political spectrum.

Needless to say, Fateh is more than aware of what his potential win could mean for the future of the Democratic Party in Minneapolis. His critics see his socialist campaign and his growing popularity in the city as a threat — and he’s more than here for it.

“They can try to call me a socialist like it’s an insult,” Fateh said. “I’m not here to manage the status quo. I’m here to fight for the people that the city has historically left behind, and I think that folks in our city are ready for a new type of politics and a city that works for everyone.”

American-born, socialist bred

Fateh credits his upbringing with his knowing how to build the kind of city that would work for everyone. He’s a proud son of Somali immigrants and a Muslim — the first Minnesota state senator of both his heritage and his faith — who was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Virginia, with summers spent with relatives in Minnesota.

He moved to Minneapolis in the mid-2010s to work for state and local government, starting in a role where he bolstered the city’s outreach to its East African communities, including the nation’s largest Somali diaspora community. He ran for state Senate in 2020, clinching the Democratic nomination by 9% over incumbent Jeff Hayden, and has held the office since.

“I feel like I have the lived experiences and understand the needs of the everyday person, and that really connects with what I’ve seen across the city,” Fateh said. Voters “are really tired of excuses,” and “what we understand is that, yes, communities might speak different languages, but they share the same struggles.”

Fateh made sure to make clear that he’s an “American-born, Somali American” who grew up in the United States, an emphasis stemming from a surge in online, xenophobic harassment because of a campaign by right-wing pundits this past summer.

His rise in national name ID ahead of the Minneapolis Democratic Farmer-Labor Party convention in July brought with it attacks from the likes of far-right Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik, as well as the late right-wing podcaster and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Raichik shared a photo of Fateh with a caption falsely claiming “the average IQ in Somalia is 68,” while Kirk, across multiple posts about Fateh, accused Muslims of taking over the government and called for an end to “all third world immigration to America.” Other far-right social media users took the rhetoric and ran with it, questioning Fateh’s citizenship and further maligning Somalia in the process.

“When extremists like them come after me, or campaigns like mine — to me, it means that we’re doing something right,” Fateh said. “That they’re scared of a working-class, multiracial coalition that is rising in Minneapolis and that we’re also seeing across our nation.”

Last week, the online attacks turned into a real-world threat. Fateh’s campaign office in Minneapolis was vandalized with a message that read, “Somali Muslim — this warning is no joke.” Co-campaign manager Akhilesh Menawat told CBS News that the vandalism was even more alarming given that Fateh’s name was on the list carried by the suspect accused of assassinating a Minnesota state lawmaker and wounding another in June.

“They’re trying to scare us, but we aren’t backing down,” Menawat said in a statement, noting that the team is discussing security measures. “Let’s use this moment not to fall for intimidation tactics but to lock arms and win this race.”

Should he become the city’s first Muslim mayor, Fateh’s goals are simple but sweeping: build a Minneapolis that working people can afford by increasing the minimum wage to $20 by 2028 and securing rent stabilization; diversify the city’s public safety response by expanding it to include non-police responders like social workers; protect undocumented immigrants from the federal government by preventing MPD from interacting with ICE; and approach homelessness with compassion by establishing a “just cause” eviction policy, which outlines lawful justifications for landlords to evict a tenant; and supporting a housing-first model for getting people off the streets

Asked how he plans to implement those changes, Fateh said he’d connect with colleagues and community — connections he claimed the incumbent mayor has failed to maintain — as he’s done during his time as state senator for the South Side. Much of his successful legislation has come from community members visiting his office and educating him on the issues that affect them, he said. So far, his biggest wins include securing tuition-free college for students from families making less than $80,000, increasing protections and wages for rideshare drivers and legalizing fentanyl test strips.

“We’ve built a broad coalition, and with that coalition, that’s the same kind of energy we need to go in and do the work,” Fateh said. “This can’t happen without community, and at a time when we have so much unmet need in the city, and a time we have a hostile federal government, we can’t afford to have a mayor that doesn’t want to put in the work or connect with council members … We don’t have the luxury of waiting another four years for progress.”

A spokesperson for Frey did not respond to a request for comment.

“Fighting for a city”

The frequent comparisons of Mamdani and Fateh have been flooding in since July. Political observers chiefly highlight their youth, immigrant background, faith, socialist views and opposition from centrist Democrats.

The Minnesota lawmaker embraces the comparison to the would-be mayor of New York City, the so-called “Minneapolis Mamdani” pointing to his DSA counterpart’s primary win in June as a signal that Americans are ready to exchange decades of mainstream Democratic policies for socialist solutions.

The spike in Americans’ interest in socialism and the DSA is also a great indicator of that, according to Cara Tobe, a member of DSA’s national political committee. Tobe said that the organization’s membership is at more than 85,000 and growing by the hundreds each day after a multi-year dip following the 2020 election. A recent Gallup poll found that, while Americans overall overwhelmingly back capitalism, 66% of Democrats view socialism positively, which is up from 57% in 2018. A March 2025 survey by the libertarian Cato Institute also found that 62% of 18-29-year-olds hold a “favorable view” of socialism.

“What we’re seeing [in Minneapolis], and we’re seeing this in other places as well, especially from the post-George Floyd world, is working Americans, working-class people of all colors… are really wanting to see change,” Tobe said. “Change that supports and protects them.”

Fateh insisted he’s the one who can bring that about, and he’s asking Minneapolitans to rank him first, followed by attorney Jazz Hampton and ex-Minnesota Senate chaplain DeWayne Davis, in the November election. He said Minneapolis residents’ commitment to social justice, as seen in the 2020 protests following the police murder of George Floyd, has motivated his mayoral bid.

“But what I’ve said also is it feels a little bit different because now I’m a father,” Fateh added. “I’m not only fighting to fix a broken system, but I’m fighting for a city that I’m going to be raising my son in, and I want to make sure that it’s a city that values and honors everyone.”

By August, Fateh was at the top of his game, having won the Minneapolis DFL’s endorsement a month before. Receiving the endorsement over the incumbent hadn’t happened since the party’s founding, he said.

But on Aug. 21, the Minnesota DFL vacated that endorsement, igniting a battle not just with the Fateh campaign but its own party.

In a 10-page report, the state DFL said it revoked the endorsement due to alleged failures in the voting process, which led to an undercount and a mayoral candidate being erroneously dropped from consideration. It also barred the Minneapolis DFL from endorsing a mayoral candidate this year.

John Maraist, Minneapolis DFL chair, told Salon that the electronic voting system had a technical error that undercounted the ballots cast during the day, and the delegates decided to pivot to a show of badges to determine the winner by nightfall. Frey, he said, had asked his delegates to leave in order to deny quorum. But nearly 480 delegates remained — and Fateh clearly won the majority of them.

“It was very clear that Sen. Fateh had far over the 60% of shown display badges to earn the endorsement,” said Maraist, who added that the Minneapolis DFL appealed the revocation. In a hearing on Monday, the DFL State Executive Committee voted overwhelmingly to uphold the August decision.

Frey, whose campaign filed the challenge that led to the rule committee’s decision, praised the state party for the revocation and ensuring that all the candidates “get treated equally by the DFL in November.”

Fateh, however, has accused the committee of “insider games,” “backroom decisions,” and being Frey supporters and donors. In a statement, co-campaign manager Graham Faulkner argued that the decision was a political one, “not one based on the facts presented to the committee or the rules.”

“Our campaign and supporters see this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucus-goers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day,” he said.

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A nationwide tension in a local race

In many ways, Minneapolis’ mayoral race is a microcosm of the Democratic National Committee’s battle for definition post-2024 election, according to David Schultz, a professor of political science at Hamline University in Minnesota. Progressives like Fateh saw the outcome of the presidential election as an indication that moving further left on the political spectrum was the best option. Establishment Democrats, however, argue that then-Vice President Kamala Harris embraced a political agenda that’s too far left for most Americans.

“We just don’t know that the people who showed up for the [Minneapolis DFL] convention are a fair representative sample of where the electorate is in this election,” Schultz said.

The Minneapolis race is grappling with the same tension, compounded with nationwide issues of surging rent prices, gun violence and the affordability crisis, as well as its own context being the epicenter of an effort to defund police, Schultz said. Donations to Mayor Frey, meanwhile, have far outpaced his opponents, with recent filings showing he’s received $722,226 in contributions, many from the city’s business leaders. Fateh has raised $202,426 largely from smaller donations, though he may benefit from the high mobilization of the local DSA, which has achieved an almost veto-proof majority in the city council in recent years.

Which camp — progressives or mainstream Democrats — will ultimately be better mobilized in what is likely to be a low turnout election is to be seen.

“You have to get the proverbial 50% plus one of the voters, which means you need to figure out where most of the voters are, and the evidence is not suggesting, right now, that among existing voters, or easily among potential voters, going further to the left is the answer,” Schultz said.

A poll of 822 voters taken in late August from leftist political action committee Minneapolis for the Many, which has endorsed Fateh, found that Fateh is within 5 points of Frey, netting 28% support to Frey’s 34%. A plurality of undecided respondents said they had an unfavorable view of Frey at 35%, while indicating that they don’t know his opponents. Fateh, however, has improved his name recognition among voters by 25% since May, the poll found.

Fateh, as evidence of his increased recognition, said he’s seen increased engagement from young people and a surge in campaign volunteers. Americans are paying attention to the current political moment to see what the rise in socialist candidates like himself means, he said, and that’s an inflection point critical to determining the Democratic Party’s future.

“People are really hungry for more authentic candidates that are speaking to the needs of everyday people, and the everyday voter doesn’t look at it as left or right. They just see it as ‘How are these candidates going to affect my everyday life?’” he said.

“What we’re seeing is that not only [do] they want to see these candidates, but these candidates can win,” he added.

The post The “Minneapolis Mamdani” won’t let racist attacks stop him appeared first on Salon.com.