Minneapolis Mayor Wins Reelection Over Democratic Socialist Challenger

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) defeated Democratic Socialist Party challenger Omar Fateh and others to win a third term in office.

Minneapolis uses ranked choice voting to select its mayor, but Frey received more than 50% of first-choice votes, meaning he won the office without the contest going to ranked choice tabulations.

The election was officially nonpartisan, though Frey chose to include the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party label on his ballot line. He defeated a large field that included state Sen. Omar Fateh, a democratic socialist. 

In the end, Frey crossed the 50% mark while Fateh, a Democratic state senator, received 44.4% in the final round of counting. In the first round, Frey was leading Fateh by about 10%, scoring more than 40% of the total vote.

Fateh promised to raise the minimum wage in the city, railed against police and suggested community-based replacements in certain areas, and increasing affordable housing. Fateh was not as successful in selling his far-left vision to voters as Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral race where Mamdani, also a Democratic socialist, handily defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

The 35-year-old son of Somali immigrants who became the first Somali-American elected to the Minnesota state Senate in 2020 challenged incumbent Frey head-on this year, criticizing the comparatively moderate Democrat for failing to “meet the needs of our changing society.”

Fox News reported that Fateh was endorsed by Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor party this summer, the first endorsement of a Minneapolis mayoral candidate in 16 years, before DFL Chairman Richard Carlbom rescinded the coveted endorsement a month later. 

“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,” Fateh said on X in July. 

“After a thoughtful and transparent review of the challenges, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee found substantial failures in the Minneapolis Convention’s voting process on July 19th, including an acknowledgment that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention. As a result, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee has vacated the mayoral endorsement,” Carlbom said the following month.