24-07-2025
Minnesota's Mamdani: Socialist wants to replace police with ‘peace officers'
Mr Plechash was baffled at Mr Fateh's anti-police stance in a city that only a few years ago saw businesses torched and cars set alight as violent mobs rampaged through the city, protesting Floyd's killing by officer Derek Chauvin.
'If you do that, safety goes out the window, and the very people that are screaming are the ones who get hurt. So it doesn't make any sense to me.'
Mr Fateh has criticised Mr Frey, who has served as mayor of Minneapolis since 2018, for failing to 'fight' President Donald Trump on immigrant rights and has previously introduced legislation to make Minnesota a 'sanctuary' state.
Like Mr Mamdani, he has pledged to raise the minimum wage – though to $20 an hour compared to $30 in New York – establish rent controls, and 'protect our city from a hostile White House'.
Accusing the mayor of criminalising homelessness in Minneapolis, Mr Fateh said he would increase funding for shelters and take a 'compassionate approach' to encampments.
With homeless encampments leaping up across many Democrat-run cities, notably San Francisco and San Diego in California, the issue is a politically-charged one and prompted many liberal bastions to swing right in recent elections.
To pay for his campaign promises, Mr Fateh has said he wants to institute an income tax to 'ensure the wealthy pay their fair share', while floating a flurry of other levies including a commercial vacancy tax and a land value tax.
'He's coming in with a socialist agenda'
Mr Peppin said he expected Minneapolis' business community to be in a 'near panic' about the prospect of Mr Fateh becoming mayor.
'The downtown business community – I wouldn't necessarily say they had an ally in Jacob Frey… but they had somebody who would listen,' he said.
'I question whether Omar Fateh is going to be somebody who will even listen to the business community. I think he's coming in with a socialist agenda, and he will do nothing but give lip service to any of them.'
Mr Frey is challenging the DFL's endorsement of his rival, citing 'flawed and irregular conduct' at the convention.
It is far from the first such controversy Mr Fateh has been involved in.
In 2022, the candidate's brother-in-law, Muse Mohamud Mohamed, was convicted of perjury and sentenced to house arrest about his handling of mail-in ballots during his 2020 primary campaign.
Three voters testified they did not know him and had not asked him to pick up their ballots.
Mr Fateh, who ended up winning the election to state senate by around 2,000 votes, disclaimed any knowledge of Mr Mohamed's actions.
Ethics investigation
He was also investigated by a state senate ethics committee for allegedly receiving free advertising from Somali TV of Minnesota, a YouTube channel.
Mr Fateh said he had failed to include paying $1,000 for the adverts in his campaign reports. He was ordered to take part in campaign finance training but the committee did not find any evidence of a 'quid pro quo'.
Controversially, in 2023 he faced another ethics probe over allegedly suggesting Republican senators resembled violent terrorists who 'advocate for the superiority of the white race'.
While many commentators and state media have drawn the comparison to Mr Mamdani, Mr Fateh is still yet to attract the following commanded by the New York mayoral candidate, who swept to victory last month over the former state governor Andrew Cuomo.
Some suggest Mr Fateh, though in his mid-30s, does not have the social media savvy or charisma of his New York counterpart, and so far he has not been endorsed by leading Left-wing figures like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Still, the ascent of the 'Minnesota Mamdani' comes just weeks after the New Yorker's win. There may be more Mamdanis to come.
