Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty
Ilhan Omar won renomination to Congress on Tuesday night, beating back a repeat challenger.
Leading up to the primary, it seemed Rep. Omar, after an aggressive campaign backed by a major financial advantage, would cruise to an easy win against her familiar opponent, Don Samuels, who lost the 2022 primary by a little over 2,000 votes. And that’s more or less how it turned out: Within two hours of the close of voting, Omar was declared the winner with a victory margin of around 16,00o votes, or 14 percent.
In the race’s final days, conservatives looking to oust Omar mounted a late effort to take advantage of Minnesota’s open primary format and convince Republicans to skip their party’s primary and instead vote for Samuels, a former member of the Minneapolis city council.
Royce White, the state GOP-endorsed Senate candidate, posted to X that he would gladly give up 5,000 votes in the fifth congressional district to help unseat Omar. Far-right influencer Laura Loomer tweeted that “Republicans, Independents and Democrats have a once in a lifetime opportunity to remove a HAMAS supporter from Congress. Everyone can vote in the open primary.”
A recent investigation by The Intercept revealed a WhatsApp group named “Zionists for Don Samuels,” that played host to pro-Israel activists and a campaign consultant for Don Samuels; the group chat had also explored corralling Republican voters against Omar in the primary.
Omar won her primary by 14 percent.
Samuels campaign stated they had no part in the plan. On Twitter, Omar wrote that it “is shameful that my opponent is actively courting Republican votes.”
One participant in “Zionists for Don Samuels” boasted he had raised more than $120,000 for a pro-Samuels super-PAC in the last two weeks, part of a fundraising effort discussed in the channel that arose in response to a lack of support for Samuels from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. That lobbying group and its spending vehicle, the United Democracy Project have put over $25 million this primary season to supporting challengers that rose up to take on “squad” members who have been critical of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
While AIPAC reportedly planned to spend $100 million to elect more pro-Israel members of Congress in 2024, they seem to have sidestepped Samuels. Before he announced his repeat campaign, AIPAC sought to recruit sitting city councilmember LaTrisha Vetaw, as they reportedly believed Samuels had “reached his capacity” in 2022. But Vetaw’s campaign did not take shape, and Samuels again became Omar’s challenger.
In the 2022 primary, the Samuels-backing super-PAC Make a Difference MN 05 received $350,000 from UDP—a late donation that went unreported before the polls closed. This year, if late AIPAC support for Samuels exists, it has yet to be seen. But an almost identically named super-PAC sprung up in late July to amass over $100,000. Whatever its final receipts, this late funding was not enough to overcome Omar’s nearly $5 million lead.
Omar will now face Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi-immigrant who has the GOP endorsement, in the general election. The district has not sent a Republican to Congress since 1963. Omar won the 2022 general election with roughly 75 percent of the vote.
