Hard-left “Squad” member Ilhan Omar cruised to victory over her more moderate Democratic opponent Don Samuels in Minnesota’s primary on Tuesday night.
Omar won in a landslide, receiving 56.2% of the vote against Samuels’ 42.9%, with 95% of precincts reporting. Omar’s victory came after two members of the lefty faction of the Democratic party, known as “the Squad” lost to more centrist primary opponents in hard-fought races.
In June, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, an anti-Israel politician, lost to George Latimer in New York’s 16th Congressional District. More recently Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who has advocated defunding the police, lost her St. Louis-based seat to Wesley Bell, a more moderate candidate and the son of a police officer.
Minnesota was a different story. Omar narrowly won her 2022 primary — also against Samuels — with 50.3% of the vote.
Omar is expected to coast to victory in November in her heavily Democratic district once again. She scored 74.3% of the vote in the 2022 election.
Omar’s victory means that an anti-Israel contingent will continue to be a vocal part of the Democratic caucus in Congress. In 2023, Omar was removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee for tweets implying that support for Israel was motivated by funding from wealthy donors.
Don Samuels, a Minneapolis city council member, has presented himself as a more moderate alternative to Omar.
Before the primary, Samuels tweeted that his campaign is “a movement of regular Americans standing up against the hate, the division, and the self-serving politics that are tearing our community and country apart!”
Omar has an ally in Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, who once said, “When I’m having a tough day… I think ‘Ilhan Omar’s a congresswoman,’ and it just brightens you up.”
