The Wild Reed: Omar Fateh’s Grassroots Campaign for Mayor of Minneapolis

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Omar Fateh’s Grassroots Campaign for Mayor of Minneapolis

Omar Fateh, a Democratic socialist, hopes to defeat incumbent Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey by focusing on affordability, wages and public safety

– Rachel Leingang

As most reading this will know, I live in Minneapolis where our city elections are less than a week away. In the mayoral race, I’m supporting Democratic socialist Omar Fateh who was featured today in an article in The Guardian by Rachel Leingang. I’ll share this article in two parts, the first of which is below.

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On a rainy October day, dozens of volunteers showed up at a Minneapolis park to grab campaign literature they would leave at voters’ doors, hoping to buoy up a Democratic socialist into the mayor’s office.

A handful of door-knockers ran into an apartment building to escape the rain, joining Omar Fateh, the mayoral hopeful sometimes dubbed the “Mamdani of Minneapolis.”

“We’re running on a campaign to make the city more livable, affordable and to protect all of our residents,” he told one voter, who said they hadn’t been following the race closely.

Two others who answered knew Fateh’s name and lent their support. “I think I’m planning on voting for you,” one man told Fateh.

Minneapolis voters will decide their next mayor on Tuesday 4 November.

Fateh, a 35-year-old who became state senator by ousting an incumbent, has gained attention for comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist on track to win New York City’s mayoral contest. They’re both young, both part of the insurgent left, both Muslim, both state lawmakers. Their platforms, with a focus on affordability, align. Their campaigns tap into grassroots organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Their races use ranked-choice voting, allowing for alliances against the incumbent.

Instead of a primary, Minneapolis holds caucuses and a city convention. Fateh earned the endorsement of the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, but it was then revoked by the state party after the electronic voting system failed to capture all votes in the contest, the Minneapolis DFL acknowledged, leaving the race without an endorsed candidate.

“One of the biggest benefits of the DFL endorsement is name recognition,” Fateh told The Guardian. “But that name recognition became far greater than what we ever could have gotten with the endorsement after they revoked it.”

The Minneapolis mayor’s race doesn’t feature the shamelessness of the New York City race – namely, the participation of the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and the ethically suspect incumbent mayor, Eric Adams. Few have the charisma of Mamdani, nor the organizing and social media prowess of his campaign, one that left-leaning candidates around the country will try to emulate.

Minneapolis’s incumbent mayor, Jacob Frey, running for his third term, has his critics – for his handling of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in the city in 2020, persistent policing problems, a homelessness crisis and contentions with the more progressive city council. Frey, 44, often serves as a moderate check on the council, which includes several Democratic socialists.

There are 15 candidates running in the race, four of whom – all Democrats – are considered viable. The three top challengers, including Fateh, have created an alliance, appearing at each other’s events, though only Fateh is explicitly telling voters not to rank Frey on their ballots. Public polling of the race is minimal, complicated by the ranked-choice voting method, though Frey typically shows as the top vote-getter, albeit not cresting the necessary 50% to win in a first ballot.

“The fact that Fateh and other candidates are drawing as much support as they appear to be, I think, owes to the fact that the Democratic party has lost credibility among progressive voters,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “This is not a cross-section of America. This is an urban area in one of the most progressive kind of electorates in the country.”