State Senator Omar Fateh declared his candidacy Monday morning for Minneapolis mayor in next year’s city election.
Flanked by 14 supporters at the rotunda in Minneapolis City Hall, Omar described himself as a “husband, renter, son of Somali immigrants and a longtime advocate for working people.”
Omar, a Democrat, said it’s getting harder “to build our lives” in Minneapolis, and accused Mayor Jacob Frey and “the status quo” of failing the city’s residents.
“Minneapolis residents are working hard for the city that they love, and they deserve a mayor that works as hard as they do,” Omar said.
Frey, who is nearing the end of his second term as mayor, told the Star Tribune last month that he plans to run for reelection.
In a prepared statement, Frey campaign spokesperson Sam Schulenberg said Frey welcomes Omar to the race and looks forward to “presenting voters with a clear choice between two contrasting visions for the future of Minneapolis.”
“Mayor Frey’s responsible leadership has helped the city recover while making critical progress toward rebuilding the police department, leading the nation in affordable housing, and supporting workers and local businesses,” the statement said.
Schulenberg criticized Omar for supporting the failed 2021 effort to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety department, and warned that Omar would “rubber-stamp the most extreme voices on the City Council.”
Rev. DeWayne Davis, a pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church in south Minneapolis, is also running for mayor in the November 4, 2025 election. Minneapolis City Council Member Emily Koski has also said she is considering a run for the office.
Omar spoke in general and broad terms Monday about what he’d do as mayor, and focused on his legislative accomplishments at the Capitol while representing parts of south Minneapolis for the past four years.
They include authoring or co-authoring successful bills that grant free college tuition to students from families making yearly household incomes of $80,000 or less, and securing $19 million in public safety spending for Minneapolis.
All of these came during the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party’s control of the state Senate, House of Representatives and governor’s office during the past two years. Omar emphasized that Democrats control Minneapolis city government, but are not seeing similar results.
“Serving in the Minnesota Senate, I’ve seen firsthand what a progressive Legislature can do with the right executive,” he said. “As mayor, I’ll work with the progressive city council to achieve real wins for our neighbors and uplift those who are struggling to get by.”
Community supporters who introduced Omar Monday criticized Frey’s administration for vetoing a city ordinance increasing wages for Uber and Lyft drivers, and for not doing enough to change city policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
Asked how he’d act differently than Frey on the consent decree between Minneapolis and the state Human Rights Department to reform policing, and a similar agreement with the federal Department of Justice, Omar said he’d spend time listening to the community on policing issues.
Similarly, when asked about how he’d address the current shortage of police officers in the city, Omar said the police department needs to change its strategy “from the top.”
Omar said he saw successful responses to victims who were in crisis during a ride along with police, and heard similar stories in conversation with officers.
“But in a lot of those responses, we’ve had way too many officers showing up when someone, for example, was in a mental health crisis,” he said. “To me, when we talk about staffing shortages, we’ve also got to talk about what is the strategy? How do we place people in times of need in the right place? When people call 911, they deserve the right approach at the right time.”
Omar was first elected to the state Senate in 2020, after beating longtime incumbent Jeff Hayden for the DFL nomination in the primary. He was reelected to a four-year term in 2022.
His legislative tenure hasn’t been without controversy. In 2022, a Senate committee ordered him to undergo campaign finance training after failing to disclose payments he made for online campaign advertising.
That same year, Omar’s brother-in-law was convicted of lying to a grand jury about how he handled absentee ballots while he was volunteering for Omar’s first campaign. Omar told a Senate ethics panel that he did not know how the ballots were handled; the panel dismissed an ethics complaint against Omar on the matter.
