AP: Omar ekes out House primary win over centrist in Minnesota

 On this blog I rarely go heavily into political analysis other than what's already in the news. I just found this interesting from primary nite in Minnesota. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is one of the members of The Squad often a group of female members of the US House of Representatives such as AOC, Ayana Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and more recently Cori Bush. The Squad is are very progressive Democratic socialists who hold such views as defund police.

So Rep. Omar had won a much closer primary to a more moderate Democrat in his Twin Cities congressional district.

Omar, who represents Minneapolis and is one of the left's leading voices in Congress, has defended calls to redirect public safety funding more into community-based programs. She squared off with former City Councilmember Don Samuels, whose north Minneapolis base suffers from more violent crime than other parts of the city.

Samuels argued that Omar is divisive and helped defeat a ballot question last year that sought to replace the city police department with a new public safety unit. He and others also successfully sued the city to force it to meet minimum police staffing levels called for in Minneapolis' charter.

Samuels said his narrow loss shows that Omar is beatable: “If this was the general election, no doubt that we would have won this race." Omar countered, “Tonight’s victory is a testament to how much our district believes in the collective values we are fighting for.”

What I see in that article is a lot of references to "defund the police" and Rep. Omar is a proponent. She still won however. 

Last week Laura Ingraham visited those parts of Minneapolis that were heavily affected by the rioting after George Floyd's death in 2020. Those viewing her FOX News program found that the high crime has even bled into downtown MPLS. Police staffing levels are lower since the political establishment there aren't putting much effort into meeting minimum staffing levels. They may still believe in this idea as noted in the quote above of "abolish the police".

Of course here's one thing that confuses me:

“She’s had a lot of adversity already and pushback. I don’t think her work is done,” said Kathy Ward, a 62-year-old property caretaker for an apartment building in Minneapolis who voted for Omar. “We’ve got to give her a chance.”

A chance for what exactly? More of the same. She needs more of a chance to abolish police.

I found some numbers for Rep. Omar's race here from FOX 9 in MPLS. The numbers and percentages are real close.