Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh, a Democratic Socialist whose campaign has drawn parallels to Zohran Mamdani, lost the endorsement of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) on Thursday.
The decision to strip Fateh of his endorsement came after incumbent Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey challenged the DFL’s voting process.
“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 acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention,” DFL Party Chairman Richard Carlbom said in a statement.
“As a result, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee has vacated the mayoral endorsement,” he added.
Fateh, a 35-year-old Somali American state senator, had received more than 60% of the vote from delegates at the DFL’s contested convention.
Frey, who was elected mayor in 2017 and reelected in 2021, was in charge of Minneapolis while the city burned during 2020’s BLM riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer.
Fateh is set to face off with Frey in the November mayoral election.
