Monday November 5, 2018
By Leila Fadel
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar pauses while speaking during the Democratic Farmer Labor Party endorsement convention in Minneapolis on June 17. Emilie Richardson / Bloomberg via Getty Images
On a recent Saturday afternoon in an office in St. Paul, Minn., a
flurry of calls went out to Native American and Latinos voters reminding
them to vote Nov. 6. And there was a new group added to the list:
Muslims.
Until last year, ISAIAH,
a multi-racial coalition of faith communities in Minnesota, was mostly
made up of churches. Now, 24 mosques have joined the voter turnout
effort. The group is focused on getting communities of color to vote
this year in reaction to what it describes as politics of fear and a
rise of white nationalism.
With Muslims and immigrants used as boogeymen in political rhetoric, Imam Asad Zaman, executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota,
said, getting his community to the ballot box is vital. Zaman is
leading the local Muslim effort to get out the vote and has been a
leader on political engagement in the community for more than 15 years. And
there are more Muslims now running for office, hoping to be part of a
"blue wave." In Minnesota, nine Muslims are on the ballot for state,
federal and local offices.
"Many candidates running for office
are using Islamophobia as a means to get to political power. That is
absolutely un-American," Zaman said. "The community is under assault.
Fortunately, most of us are beginning to wake up."
He points out
that in Minnesota there are 50,000 registered Muslim voters. Though
Muslims make up a small voting bloc — they're about one percent of the
nation's population — those votes can matter in close elections. Many
feel a renewed sense of urgency to choose leaders that will represent
them.
"You have President Trump, even as a candidate and obviously after taking office," said Wa'el Alzayat the head of Emgage Foundation,
"espousing anti-Muslim views and stoking Islamophobic sentiment and
signing into law what we consider to be a Muslim ban that unfairly
targets people of our faith."
Alzayat's organization works to increase Muslim political participation.
About two-thirds of Muslim voters identify as Democrats according to the Pew Research Center and about 13 percent as Republican.
This
year Muslims could shift even more blue, Alzayat says. And while
turnout is typically lower in mid-term elections than presidential ones,
he says there are already signs that Muslims are planning to vote in
bigger numbers this year.
In some key states they could have an outsized impact.
"What's
interesting is that they are clustered in key areas including
battleground states such as Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and
especially in urban areas," Alzayat says. "So, for example you have
about 120,000 registered Muslim voters in the state of Michigan. You
have about 120,000 registered in Florida. You have about 100,000
registered in Virginia and those numbers really matter because in close
elections ... just a few votes can make a difference let alone tens of
thousands, if not 100,000."
Minnesota elected the
first Muslim man to Congress in 2006, Keith Ellison. He is one of two
Muslim men in Congress right now. And now the state is likely one of two
sending the first Muslim women. The other is Michigan, where Democrat Rashida Tlaib won her primary and is expected to head to Congress.
Ilhan Omar
is running for Ellison's seat. And Ellison is in a very tight race for
attorney general. The Democrat's campaign has been clouded by domestic
abuse allegations that Ellison denies and that his party investigated
and said were unfounded. He's also running statewide for the first time
and the state is less diverse then the district he currently represents.
Omar won her primary in a district that's gone to Democrats for more than 50 years.
She's
petite but when she walks into a room, she owns it. On a recent
afternoon she's giving a rallying speech to volunteers. When she's
introduced, she's met with raucous applause.
"As an
immigrant I truly believed when I was coming to this country that people
had the tools necessary to life to live a life that is prosperous, that
is just and free," she said. The audience murmured in agreement. "So
every single day I am shocked with the hypocrisy of this country. That
we are the wealthiest nation in the world. But we cannot figure out how
to house our homeless people. We can't figure out how to feed our kids
in the school system."
She'll be a lot of firsts if she
makes it to Congress. The first refugee, the first Somali, the first
Muslim woman. But that's not how she captured the enthusiasm of her
mostly white district. She did it, she said, by talking directly to
voters who share her values. The democratic socialist beat her closest
opponent by over 20,000 votes.
"For me as an immigrant who didn't
speak the language, when I would have struggles as a kid my dad would
say 'once you are able to communicate with people, they're able to
connect with you beyond your otherness,'" she said. "That is really the
message I've carried throughout my life."
And it was the crux of her campaign, talking directly to voters who are like her and different than her. She
says, she spends most of her time talking to people and doesn't depend
on ads and fliers in the mail. The strategy worked, because Muslims or
Somalis alone didn't win her the primary or her current seat in the
state house.
"Seventy percent of the people I currently
represent and the people that I will have the opportunity to represent
in Congress are white," she said. "And you know nearly 90 percent of
them are non-Muslims. And so it is important for me to get an
opportunity to sit with folks, for them to have a discussion with me
about their struggles and what's at stake."
She calls her
politics, the politics of moral "clarity and courage." Her platform
includes canceling student debt, banning private prisons, registering
new voters automatically when they're 18, passing the End Racial and
Religious Profiling Act.
And Somalis are particularly excited
about her possible election to Congress. Minnesota is home to the
largest Somali population in the country.
At Karmel Mall, known
as the Somali mall, cafes serve cardamom and cinnamon spiced coffee with
condensed milk, women's clothing stores hawk colorful loose fitting
dresses and men get groomed at barber shops. One person after the next
says they plan to vote and to vote for Ilhan Omar if they're in her
district.
"I can't wait, to be honest," Kaltun Ali says. "For me it's personal to be honest. I am Somali and I am Muslim."
The
respiratory therapist is shopping for curtains with her daughter Nayla.
This year, since the election of President Trump, she says, she's been
afraid.
"America became unsafe for us and very sad and racist and
a lot of bigotry so I want to vote," she says. "I want to send my
message that we have a voice."
Her words underscored by last
month's shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 Jewish
people and the shooting of two African-Americans at a grocery store in
Kentucky. Last year, a Minnesota mosque was bombed.
"We are all
American at the end of the day," Ali says. "If we're Somali versus white
or any people versus another it's not safe for anybody."