Mamdani Lost Among Native New Yorkers, Win Carried by Newcomers.

PULSE POINTS

❓WHAT HAPPENED: Omar Fateh, a far-left Democrat, lost his bid to become the Mayor of Minneapolis to fellow Democrat Jacob Frey by six percentage points.

👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Omar Fateh, Jacob Frey, and 13 other candidates, including DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton.

📍WHEN & WHERE: Election results were released on Wednesday, November 5, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

💬KEY QUOTE: “While this wasn’t the outcome we wanted, I am incredibly grateful to every single person who supported our grassroots campaign. I’ll keep fighting alongside you to build the city we deserve. Onward.” – Omar Fateh

🎯IMPACT: Jacob Frey secures a third term as mayor, continuing his moderate approach to governance and rejecting the more progressive policies championed by Fateh.

Omar Fateh, a 30-year-old Somali-background Minnesota state senator and far-left Democrat, has lost his campaign to become mayor of Minneapolis. Fateh was defeated by incumbent Jacob Frey, 44, who secured reelection by about six percentage points, according to results released on November 5.

Frey, who will now serve a third term, ran on a platform focused on what he called “good, thoughtful governance that listens to data, research, and experts to deliver real results.” He was endorsed by Minnesota Governor and failed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

Fateh, who sought to become Minneapolis’s first Muslim and Somali-American mayor, addressed supporters in a statement on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “While this wasn’t the outcome we wanted, I am incredibly grateful to every single person who supported our grassroots campaign. I’ll keep fighting alongside you to build the city we deserve. Onward.”

A progressive activist in the state legislature, Fateh’s campaign was often compared to that of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist just elected Mayor of New York City. However, Fateh’s early support for the “defund the police” movement and his left-leaning positions, which Mamdani shared but deemphasized on the campaign trail, may have turned away moderate voters.

Fateh’s loss is particularly significant for Minnesota’s Somali-American community, one of the largest in the United States, with an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 residents, most living in the Twin Cities area. Members of the Somali community have been subjects of controversy in recent years, including a Minneapolis resident who was recently sentenced to 30 years in prison for their role in a 2012 kidnapping of American journalist Michael Scott Moore off the coast of Somalia. The U.S. Department of Justice identified former pirate Abdi Yusuf Hassan as a naturalized U.S. citizen of Minneapolis.

Another Somali from Minnesota, Guhaad Hashi Said, a former political operative linked to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a pandemic-era food program scam earlier this year.

The Minneapolis Police Department in late 2024 swore in its first Somali-American woman officer and its first non-citizen officer, following changes in state law that allow legal residents who are not U.S. citizens to serve.

Minnesota adopted a new state flag in 2024, a process driven by woke complaints that the previous design, featuring an American Indian on horseback and a white settler plowing land, was offensive. Critics complained the new design resembles a Somali flag.

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