Thursday August 21, 2025
State Senator Omar Fateh, left, observes State Senator Mark Koran, right, read an ethics complaint against him on June 8, 2022. Credit: Ben Hovland | Sahan Journal
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (HOL) — The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has revoked its endorsement of State Sen. Omar Fateh in the Minneapolis mayoral race, citing major failures in the city party’s convention that wrongly eliminated a candidate and compromised the results.
The decision, announced Thursday by the state party’s Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee, nullifies Fateh’s
historic July endorsement as the first Somali politician ever backed for mayor in Minneapolis. The ruling said the Minneapolis DFL’s electronic system undercounted 176 votes on the first ballot, which improperly disqualified candidate DeWayne Davis, who had reached the 20 percent threshold needed to advance.
The committee said both the first and second rounds of voting must be disregarded “in their entirety,” placing the Minneapolis DFL on two years’ probation and barring it from holding another mayoral endorsement this year. The chapter must now submit compliance and best-practices plans under the supervision of the state executive committee.
The revocation ends Fateh’s exclusive access to the DFL’s voter database, restoring access to all candidates, and removes other party resources from his campaign. His endorsement marked the first time in 16 years that Minneapolis Democrats had backed a mayoral candidate and the first time a challenger won support against an incumbent mayor.
Fateh’s campaign condemned the decision as a deliberate move to sideline progressives.
“Twenty-eight party insiders, including Frey donors, met privately to overturn the will of Minneapolis residents,” said co-campaign manager Graham Faulkner. “This is disenfranchisement of thousands of caucus-goers. The establishment is threatened by our message. We are still in this fight, and we are going to win.”
Mayor Jacob Frey, seeking a third term, welcomed the ruling.
“I am proud to be a member of a party that believes in correcting our mistakes,” Frey said in a statement. “I look forward to a full and honest debate with Senator Fateh about our city’s future, with the outcome now resting squarely where it should — with the people of Minneapolis.”
Fateh initially secured the endorsement after a convention mired in delays and disputes. The electronic system malfunctioned for hours before delegates resorted to a late-night show-of-hands vote after many Frey supporters had left the floor. One tally worker reportedly suffered a migraine.
The state committee’s investigation found additional irregularities:
- Unsecured delegate lists accessed by campaigns.
- A lost Ward 5 credentials book, forcing delegates to reestablish their status.
- An Excel spreadsheet with broken formulas, which miscalculated totals.
Those failures led to nearly 100 formal challenges being filed, including by former party chair Mike Erlandson. Minneapolis City Council Member Linea Palmisano, a Frey supporter, said she witnessed individuals waving delegate badges that others had returned, calling the convention “disgraceful.”
The decision has deepened rifts between the DFL’s progressive wing and its centrist leadership. Fateh, a two-term senator and democratic socialist, has advocated for rent control, higher taxes on the wealthy, and shifting police funding toward social services. His rise drew comparisons to New York’s Zohran Mamdani, a fellow democratic socialist.
Party leaders called for unity, but several lawmakers voiced alarm. State Sen. Jennifer McEwen, DFL-Duluth, called the ruling “a kind of betrayal” and warned it could fracture the party. Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne said it would have “reverberations beyond the city election this year.”
DFL Chair Richard Carlbom emphasized unity in a statement: “Now it’s time to turn our focus to electing DFL leaders who make life more affordable for Minnesotans and holding Republicans accountable for the chaos and confusion they’ve unleashed.”
The Minneapolis mayoral race, scheduled for November, is officially nonpartisan. Still, in a city dominated by Democrats, the DFL endorsement often shapes the outcome. Without that backing, Fateh faces Frey and other candidates, including Davis, attorney Jazz Hampton, caregiver Brenda Short, and hotel worker Kevin Dwire, without the institutional support that typically sways voters.
Frey, 44, has raised far more money and carved out a profile as a centrist who steered the city through the upheaval that followed George Floyd’s killing in 2020. Fateh, 35, has
pitched himself as a champion of renters, workers, and Somali-Americans in a city that is home to the largest concentration of Somali-Americans in the United States.