![]() ![]() ![]() “There is a definition of being open to ideas, and being welcoming and inclusive, which is how I would define a liberal point of view. The race between Omar and Kelliher, Omar told The Intercept in an interview last month, rested on what it means to be a true progressive. The 5th District is the bluest in Minnesota and one of the most progressive in America, and the candidates’ platforms all included the stable of progressive policy priorities like “Medicare for All,” tuition-free college, and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Tlaib and Omar are the nominees in solidly Democratic districts, and they are expected to be the first Muslim women in Congress. Over the weekend, Tlaib, fresh off her primary victory in Michigan’s 13th District, traveled to Minnesota to get out the vote for Omar. She was backed in recent weeks by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, insurgent Democratic nominees in New York and Michigan House districts, respectively. Omar ran a strong ground game, employing the strategies she used in her 2016 state legislative primary that led to a 37 percent increase in voter turnout as compared to the 2014 primary. Voter turnout was especially critical in the Minneapolis district the seat was expected to be uncontested until June 5, when its current occupant, Ellison, jumped into the race for attorney general. Patricia Torres Ray, who came in third with 13 percent. The election was widely viewed as a three-way contest between Omar, Kelliher, and state Sen. By contrast, in 2016, about 44,000 voters participated in the district’s Democratic primary, and 362,000 voted in the general election. Out of some 130,000 ballots cast, Omar went home with more than 62,000 to Kelliher’s 39,000, with just a few precincts left to count. Keith Ellison, meanwhile, handily won the nomination to replace Swanson as state attorney general, despite facing last-minute allegations of abuse from his former partner, Karen Monahan, which Ellison denied.Ī record number of voters cast ballots in the primary in the 5th District, which includes all of Minneapolis. Tim Walz - who secured the nomination - and Erin Murphy, a progressive who finished surprisingly strong. ![]() Ilhan Omar scored a convincing victory in the state’s 5th Congressional District on Tuesday night, emerging with a nearly 18-point win over former House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher.Īttorney General Lori Swanson, after leading in polls for the Democratic nomination, lost badly, finishing third behind U.S. He’s likely to be the favorite over Johnson, bolstering Democrats’ hopes of holding onto the governorship of this increasingly purple state.Minnesota state Rep. Walz, meanwhile, seemed to benefit from a consolidation of anti-Swanson voters. Swanson had antagonized Democratic progressives for years, and was hit by a late-breaking series of scandals involving alleged misuse of state property and personnel for electioneering. Democratic front-runner and Attorney General Lori Swanson finished a poor third behind state legislator Erin Murphy and the winner, U.S. Pawlenty wasn’t the only gubernatorial candidate to have a shockingly bad night, though. In the end Pawlenty again turned out to be a better candidate on paper than on the campaign trail. He also reminded Trump-loving GOP voters that TPaw called POTUS “unsound, uninformed, unhinged, and unfit to be president of the United States” while withdrawing his support from the GOP nominee after the Access Hollywood video came out in October of 2016. Johnson played the underdog well, scoring points over Pawlenty’s post-presidential-campaign career as a D.C.-based bank lobbyist. Sparse polling showed him comfortably in the lead.īut then on Tuesday night, he lost. Perhaps drawing on his experience in Iowa, he did not pursue the endorsement of the conservative-activist–dominated state party, and instead attempted to drown his primary opponent, 2014 gubernatorial nominee and local government official Jeff Johnson, in a sea of name identification and money (he was outspending Johnson by a ten-to-one margin as of June). Having embodied a political version of the Peter Principle (holding that most people eventually rise to a level where they become incompetent), Pawlenty went back to his comfort zone and announced a third gubernatorial run. ![]()
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