Ilhan Omar wins Minnesota’s Democratic primary

By Rabia Iclal Turan

WASHINGTON (A) - Representative Ilhan Omar won the Democratic primary in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District late Tuesday, defeating former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, according to US media projections.

The significant victory follows the recent defeats of fellow progressive “Squad” members Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, who faced challenges from pro-Israel lobby groups.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated super political action committee (PAC), the United Democracy Project, poured millions of dollars into efforts to unseat progressive candidates. But the pro-Israel groups have not made significant investments in Omar's race against Samuels like it did in Bowman and Bush’s.

Omar is expected to be the frontrunner for reelection in November within her strongly Democratic House district.

The primary race was closely watched, especially after Omar narrowly defeated Samuels in 2022, winning by fewer than 2,500 votes in an election that saw over 110,000 votes cast in total.

Omar has been a vocal critic of Israel's ongoing military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians since a cross-border attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year which killed nearly 1,200 people.

She was among the nearly half of Democratic Congress members who boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial address to the US Congress last month.

Omar, a refugee fleeing the civil war in Somalia, was among the first two Muslim women elected to Congress along with Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American Representative from Michigan.