Minnesota Democrats Endorse Socialist ‘Minneapolis Mamdani’ for Mayor After Ballot Count Meltdown

Minneapolis’ two-time incumbent mayor will contest the vote count at this weekend’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party convention, which resulted in the endorsement of a Democratic Socialist and state senator, Omar Fateh, for the city’s chief executive. Mr. Fateh, the 35-year-old son of Somali immigrants who has been running an insurgent campaign similar to that of Zohran Mamdani in New York, received more than 60 percent of the vote after the first round of voting in Saturday’s convention.In the first round, Mr. Fateh received 43 percent of the vote to Mr. Frey’s 31 percent. Three other candidates — Reverend DeWayne Davis, who received just less than 20 percent, traffic app maker, Jazz Hampton, and small business owner, Brenda Short — failed to qualify for the second round. “I am incredibly honored to be the DFL endorsed candidate for Minneapolis Mayor. This endorsement is a message that Minneapolis residents are done with broken promises, vetoes, and politics as usual. It’s a mandate to build a city that works for all of us,” Mr. Fateh wrote in an X post. The local equivalent of the Democratic Party, Minnesota’s DFL convention was the first to vote for a mayoral endorsement since 2009. The party faithful gave its backing to Mr. Fateh during a 12-hour event in which vote counts were reportedly marred by a medical emergency that stopped the counting of electronic ballots and errors counting paper ballots. In the end, Mr. Fateh’s endorsement came when organizers eyeballed raised badges.Before the visual count, staffers for Mr. Frey, who has been in office since 2017, urged the mayor’s backers to walk out of the convention, leaving questions about whether a quorum was present at the time of the final vote. His campaign confirmed to the Sun on Sunday that an appeal is coming.One Minnesota Democratic lawyer and political commentator, Will Stancil, who attended the convention, wrote on Blue Sky that the confusion led to defenestrating normal proceedings.“Basically all the normal voting rules were scrapped in the final minutes. In fact, we changed to paper ballots, seemed to consider changing back to electronic, voted on paper, and then changed to near-universal badge votes within a few minutes,” Mr. Stancil wrote. “To use a technical term, many people had no friggin clue what was happening.”He added, “I can scarcely imagine a process more likely to destroy trust in what is already a very divided city.” The disarray over the vote count mirrors troubles between moderate and left-wing factions of Democrats in Minneapolis. Arguments among party members included whether Mr. Fateh should receive the Democratic-Farmer-Labor endorsement since he is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. Opponents said that ignoring Democratic Socialists means rejecting young new voters to the party. Mr. Fateh and Mr. Frey have both called for more affordable housing, reducing homelessness, higher living wages, and better public services. However, Mr. Frey is considered the more moderate in part because he did not support defunding the police after the George Floyd riots that occurred during his first term. Mr. Fateh, on the other hand, says he wants to substitute police services with non-police workers by, for instance, diverting 911 calls to social workers.With no viable Republican candidate in the mayoral race, the election will come down to the Democratic ballot. None of the five contenders who sought the DFL endorsement has announced plans to drop out of the race.The 43-year-old Mr. Frey, a Jewish descendant of Ukrainian immigrants who competed for Team America as a long-distance runner in the 2007 Pan-American games, said he looked forward to debating Mr. Fateh before the November 4 election. “I want to thank everyone who showed up to support my campaign. This election should be decided by our entire city, not by a handful of delegates,” he wrote on X.

Minnesota Democrats Endorse Socialist ‘Minneapolis Mamdani’ for Mayor After Ballot Count Meltdown

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