Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was elected twice to the city’s top office with strong support from the city’s Somali voters, but this year, he faces a strong challenger who could pull significant votes from that base.
State Senator Omar Fateh gained the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party endorsement last month against Frey, the first time in the party’s history that an incumbent for Minneapolis mayor lost to a challenger. The upset puts Frey into a new dynamic facing a prominent Somali politician who has represented south Minneapolis as a two-term state senator, and who could make history if he wins the Nov. 4 general election.
Omar’s prominence in the Somali community and his DFL endorsement make him the most serious Somali candidate to ever run for Minneapolis mayor, said Graham Faulkner, a co-campaign manager for Omar’s mayoral campaign.
Faulkner acknowledged that Frey has “put in a lot of work to build his support in the Somali community” over the years.
“Whether that means folks stay loyal to him, I can’t speak to that,” Faulkner said. “But we’re in a position to be able to show the East African voting base that this is a real historic opportunity here. It’s really going to depend on the groundwork.”
Omar’s strategy to court the East African vote will revolve around canvassing and doorknocking in Somali neighborhoods with volunteers and staffers from the community, as well as showing up frequently to community events, Faulkner said.
Sam Schulenberg, Frey’s campaign manager, acknowledged that, “Sen. Fateh is an exciting new candidate who has the chance to become the first Somali mayor of Minneapolis.” But he said the challenge can be overcome by emphasizing the differences between both candidates’ positions on issues, and their track records in office.
Frey plans to campaign hard for the Somali vote, leveraging relationships he’s built with people in the community, Schulenberg said.
“We are going to continue to work with organizers and community leaders who speak the language and are known and respected in the community,” Schulenberg said. “We will continue to show up whenever and wherever we can to show that the mayor cares deeply about the success of that community, and that he’s not taking those votes for granted.
“He’s built relationships in that community that go back years with organizers and community leaders who have been extremely helpful in galvanizing support for the mayor.”
Abdirizak Bihi, a Somali community activist and longtime resident of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, said Frey has strong support in the community but that Omar is “making strides.”
During Frey’s first two campaigns for mayor, he was heavily involved in doorknocking in Somali neighborhoods and showing up at Somali events, Bihi said, pointing to a video of Frey speaking Somali to a crowd in June during Somali Week.
In that speech, Frey attempts to translate his first name into an Arabic version, which he’s done in past campaign seasons.
“He uses that name, and it attracts a lot of people,” Bihi said.
However, Omar, who has served in the Senate since 2021 representing an area that includes Karmel Mall, the biggest Somali mall in the state, is a strong contender, Bihi added.
“A lot of people admire him, being a young man born in the United States like many young people are now,” Bihi said. “Him getting the endorsement was big.”
Bihi declined to state how he intended to vote this fall, stating that he admired both candidates and has supported both in the past.
Sahan Journal spoke with several East African voters in Minneapolis shortly after Omar won the DFL endorsement, and heard a mixture of opinions. About a third planned to vote for Frey, citing his accomplishments, while fewer people said they’re supporting Omar because they want a fresh face in the mayor’s office.
About a third were undecided, although they had all voted for Frey in the past.
Frey supporters like his work on housing, policing
Mohamed Munae, a 50-year-old Uber driver, said he likes both Frey and Omar, but that if he had to choose a candidate, he’d pick Frey.
“Both candidates are the same; I like all of them,” he said. “But I would pick Frey. That’s just my choice.”
Frey, 44, worked as an attorney and served one term on the City Council representing northeast Minneapolis before becoming mayor in 2018. He is married to lawyer and former lobbyist Sarah Clarke, who gave birth to their second child Wednesday morning.
Frey’s first mayoral campaign focused on ending homelessness and supporting affordable housing, an issue that’s come back to haunt him in recent years as a large, mostly Indigenous homeless encampment became a polarizing presence in the city.
During his second run for mayor, Frey campaigned against a failed ballot initiative to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a broader public safety department. This time, he’s running on his record, citing recent drops in homelessness and 911 calls.
He’s also pledging to follow changes outlined in the recently abandoned federal consent decree for Minneapolis police that calls for sweeping reforms to rectify biased policing against Black and Indigenous residents, among other measures.
Frey is endorsed by several prominent politicians, including Gov. Tim Walz, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Minneapolis City Council members Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw and Linea Palmisano.
“I want a mayor who connects with me and is more in society and knows what he’s doing,” Hamza said.
Said Farah, 46, has lived in Minneapolis since 2000, previously voted for Frey, and plans to support him again this fall. He pointed to the construction of new apartments around Cedar-Riverside and plans for new apartments nearby as affordable housing solutions the city is working on under Frey.
“The view is good,” Said said of the construction, “especially from my neighborhood.”
Near the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street on the edge of the Whittier neighborhood, Mohamed Alika, who runs the Lan Halal market, said crime has been down recently and property taxes have not been bad for him under Frey.
“We don’t see chaos going on, public safety has been better than before” said Mohamed, 29, who voted for Frey in the past and plans to do so again. “Frey’s a good man, and I’m going to vote for someone with a record.”
Mohamed added that he has never seen Omar in the community before, and hadn’t heard of him until the current election.
Public safety will be an issue that brings more Somali voters to support Frey over Omar, predicted Ahmed Elmi, a 25-year-old computer engineering student at the University of Minnesota who supports and plans to campaign for the incumbent mayor.
As a state senator, Omar supported the failed 2021 city ballot initiative to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a new public safety department. The effort was prompted by Minneapolis police’s murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Frey campaigned heavily against the measure, and was elected that year to a second term, with 56% of the vote in the final round of ranked choice voting.
Ahmed said he thinks Omar’s past position on the ballot measure will alienate him with Somali voters.
“Most of these residents support Democrat moderates,” Ahmed said. “But Fateh is far left. He supports a lot of stuff that’s going to hurt this community.”
But he added that he thinks Frey’s campaign will need to campaign more in the Somali community between now and the fall to win needed support.
Omar supporters cite his Senate work, connection to community
Hamza Ali spoke about his support for Omar as he walked to Karmel Mall on a hot Friday afternoon. Hamza said he is familiar with Omar’s work in the state Senate.
“I think he’s going to be great for Minneapolis,” he said. “I have nothing to oppose him. I like almost everything he’s for.”
Omar, 35, works as a business analyst at the University of Minnesota when he’s not in session at the state Legislature. He and his wife are expecting their first child.
As Minnesota’s first Somali state senator, he represents a district in south Minneapolis, and has authored legislation to increase wages for Uber and Lyft drivers, and played a key role establishing a statewide program that offers free public college tuition for students whose families make less than $80,000 a year.
Omar, a Democratic socialist, is endorsed by 13 state lawmakers and five Minneapolis City Council members — Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez, Robin Wonsley and Jamal Osman, the only Somali council member.
Hamza said he’s frequently seen Omar in the community, and that Omar has been unfairly attacked in the media over the years. Meanwhile, he said, mayors are supposed to be “intimate” with their communities, and he doesn’t see that from Frey.
Similarly, Abdulshakur Ali said he plans to vote for Omar because he’s more likely to help the needy.
“We don’t need rich people getting richer,” Abdulshakur said. “A lot of people are starving, going homeless, losing their Social Security, and need their lives back.”
Omar is Muslim, Abdulshakur emphasized, and follows the religion’s ethics to support those in need.
“We play fair, and we want everybody to get what we need,” Abdulshakur said.
Frey supporters are open to other candidates
At Karmel Mall, Ahmed Ali and Abdimanan Ali both discussed what they were looking for in a mayoral candidate. Both have supported Frey in the past, and are open to doing so again. But they also want to learn more about Omar’s campaign platform before making a decision.
“We are very happy to see a Somali mayoral candidate coming from our community,” Ahmed said. “But when somebody runs for office, we have to see their policies and what they’re doing for the community.”
Ahmed said the city has been slow to plow the commercial corridor near Karmel Mall, which impacts Somali-owned businesses in the area. He said the City Council office didn’t respond to his complaints about the snow, and that while the mayor’s office does communicate, it’s often too late. He added that he hasn’t seen Frey in the community as much recently.
Schulenberg, Frey’s campaign manager, pushed back on that contention, saying the campaign makes it a point to show up in the Somali community “extremely frequently.”
Ahmed added that he and many in the community are “against defunding the police,” and didn’t agree with Omar’s support to “dismantle and replace MPD” during his first campaign for state Senate.
“We need police to be in our city, to enforce the law, especially against the gang members we have,” Ahmed said. “Also, we don’t need police brutality and use of excess force.”
Darwin Forsyth, a spokesperson for Frey’s campaign, emphasized that the 2021 ballot measure to replace Minneapolis police did poorly in East African neighborhoods.
But Faulkner, Omar’s co-campaign manager, said replacing the police department isn’t on the table in the current election, and that Omar’s current public safety platform supports “an increase in public safety resources.” Faulkner noted that the city’s own statistics show that 47 percent of 911 calls can be responded to “with some kind of unarmed response,” and that Omar supports non-police response in such cases.
Abdimanan, a former Minneapolis police officer who quit the force after George Floyd’s murder, said Frey has been doing a good job lately on public safety.
“In the beginning, it was really messed up, but it’s gotten better,” he said of crime during Frey’s time in office.
He added that he’d like to see Frey do more to combat homelessness in the city. Frey has faced criticism for clearing encampments in recent years, and for failing to deliver on his previous promise in 2017 to end homelessness by in five years.
“That’s the one thing I would blame him on,” Abdimanan said. “Other than that, he’s done really well.”
Abdimanan is undecided on who he’ll vote for, noting that he supported both Omar and Frey in the past.
“I want to compare them both, and I need to look more into what Fateh is going to do,” he said.
Abdi Farah, 50, said he was undecided when Sahan Journal spoke with him in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. He voted for Frey in the past, but said a new face could be refreshing.
“What he’s saying right now is better,” Abdi said of Omar. “But for the future, I don’t know.”
Local struggles, current events turn some voters off
Several voters told Sahan Journal they’re not engaged in the election, and didn’t plan to vote this fall because of their disgust with politics.
“Why waste my time?” said Ahmed Ali, 63, as he shopped at the Lan Halal market.
Ahmed noted that in the past few years, he is seeing more and more Somali people going homeless, which he said was not the case when he moved to Minnesota in the 1990s. He attributes this to a drug crisis affecting Somali youth, and doesn’t believe politicians will do anything about it.
“I really don’t care that he has a similar name to me,” Ahmed said of Omar. “The only thing that matters to me is a person who is going to do good for our community and us.”
Kadar Shire, a 43-year-old Uber driver, said he won’t vote because “politicians have no morals, no decency.” He compared the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by Israel’s war against Hamas with the Holocaust, and said history is repeating itself because politicians are failing to do anything about Gaza.
Bihi said he expected the election season to be “running high” after Omar’s endorsement, “but for both sides, it’s quiet.”
“When I go to coffee shops or events, by this time I usually see people talking and arguing about the upcoming election,” Bihi said. “But I don’t see that right now.”
