The Minnesota Democratic Party revoked its Minneapolis chapter’s endorsement of Omar Fateh, a socialist state senator running for mayor, as Fateh faces accusations of “cheating” at a recent party convention that saw him clinch that endorsement.
“The Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee found substantial failures in the Minneapolis Convention’s voting process on July 19th, including an acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention,” state party chairman Richard Carlbom announced in a statement. “As a result, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee has vacated the mayoral endorsement.”
Fateh, a self-declared democratic socialist dubbed the “Mamdani of Minneapolis,” won the endorsement in an upset victory over two-term incumbent mayor Jacob Frey. Frey’s campaign contested the nomination, prompting accusations of a stolen election and the state party’s investigation.
Minneapolis city councilwoman Linea Palmisano (D.), a Frey supporter, openly criticized the convention vote as rigged, telling the Minnesota Star Tribune on Friday that Fateh won the endorsement by “cheating, favoritism and excluding votes.”
This is not the first time Fateh has dealt with accusations of misleading fellow Democrats. In 2022, he faced a State Senate ethics committee’s investigation over his connections to a 2020 campaign volunteer who was convicted for perjury in a federal election fraud case. Fateh “told [state party] leadership he had no relationship” to volunteer Muse Mohamud Mohamed, who was actually his brother-in-law, the Minnesota Reformer reported. The committee ultimately dismissed the charges but found that Fateh had failed to disclose campaign finance payments.
Minneapolis Democrats admitted this week that the electronic voting system malfunctioned at the convention, causing ballots to be undercounted and candidate DeWayne Davis to be improperly eliminated, Axios reported. Frey’s campaign said that many of his supporters left the convention after the voting system broke down. The remaining delegates endorsed Fateh by a show of hands.
The state party’s committee also found that “the Minneapolis convention credentials sheet, which included the names of delegates and those who could vote, was left unsecured and accessed by non-members of the credentials committee, including candidates’ campaigns,” according to the Star Tribune.
Fateh has faced scrutiny for his anti-Semitic and other far-left stances and sparked comparisons to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. Just 10 days after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israel, Fateh called for a ceasefire, blasted the Jewish state for defending itself, and parroted the lie that Israel struck al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City—an explosion actually caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.
The socialist candidate has also long opposed law enforcement, having celebrated the Minneapolis City Council’s decision to defund the police.
