Don Samuels Asserts Progressive Yet Pragmatic Vision in Race Against Rep. Ilhan Omar

By Don Samuels

People can sense there’s something deeply broken about our political system. It leaves most voters angry, exhausted, or deeply suspicious of the motivations of their elected officials. Very few districts in Minnesota or our nation are truly competitive. We’re left with countless safe blue and red districts through that geographic polarization. In those districts, winning a political party’s endorsement usually guarantees election to office. As a candidate in Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District in a rematch with Rep. Ilhan Omar, I believe voters deserve more.

Don SamuelsPredictably, Omar received the DFL Party endorsement in 2022–as she has in all of her congressional races. However, that didn’t stop our campaign from making history by coming within 2.1% of defeating her in that year’s August primary with less than five months of campaigning.

As a lifelong, progressive, pragmatic Democrat, my opponent and I have many positions in common. We both support a woman’s right to choose and efforts to codify reproductive rights into federal law. We both believe climate change is an urgent concern that requires bold leadership at the federal level. We also believe access to quality and affordable healthcare, housing, and education is necessary to create a life of opportunity and a strong America. It’s our vastly different approach to the job that voters should care most about.

Both Omar and I are immigrants. I arrived in America from post-colonial Jamaica with $87 dollars on my way to attend Pratt Institute of Design in New York. I worked full-time at night while studying full-time by day, often suffering wage theft and other abuses while working without legal permissions and protections. This is when I committed to staying connected to the margins by always living in the most challenging part of any city I lived in. That is why my wife, Sondra, and I live in the most challenged section of north Minneapolis and have worked tirelessly for the interests of our community for more than 27 years.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Sondra and I held countless community events for contemplation, prayer, and unity. Meanwhile, Omar stoked our community’s anguish as she called to defund and dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. When cooler heads, like former President Barack Obama, tried to channel righteous concern into real solutions, pointing out that the “snappy slogan” would make the work of real reform more difficult, our congresswoman responded directly by saying it wasn’t a snappy slogan, but a “policy demand.” Sadly, Omar’s intransigence on public safety even extended to the halls of Congress, where she was one of only three Democrats who voted against additional security measures at the U.S. Capitol after the January 6th insurrection.

On the campaign trail, Omar touts $54 million in earmarks over five years that she and other members of Congress have had to fund worthy programs in their districts. But that is less than 1% of the infrastructure dollars coming to Minnesota because of President Joe Biden’s signature infrastructure bill, which will bring more than $6 billion to our state. Sadly, Omar was one of just six Democrats to vote against this historic and much-needed funding, which will improve our transportation systems, invest in green technologies to support our climate change goals, and put thousands of Minnesotans to work building and maintaining it all.

While my opponent has attempted to frame a complex, decades-long conflict as a simple morality play where people are either “pro-genocide” or “anti-genocide,” her own voting record hardly meets the standard she lays out. She was the only Democratic member of Congress to vote against sanctioning Iranian leaders in the wake of the killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman murdered by Iran’s morality police for removing her headscarf. She was also the only Democrat to vote against sanctions on Turkish leaders after they attacked Kurdish minorities.

In addition, Omar was one of only two Democrats who refused to vote in recognition of the Armenian genocide. One of only two to oppose sanctions on both Russian oil and oligarchs in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. She has even explained those votes as reflective of her opposition to sanctions–and yet she supports sanctions against nations like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. She is a walking contradiction.

Perhaps more troubling is Omar’s pattern of self-dealing that doesn’t square with her words or our district’s values. She has derided foreign influence spending by some nations while taking luxury trips to Qatar and Pakistan, which was paid for by those nations. The latter was notable because she failed to notify the U.S. State Department of her travels, something highly unusual for that type of trip. The former seems more straightforward. She was given World Cup luxury box tickets in a stadium widely criticized as being built with slave labor.

Despite Omar’s pronouncements on big money in politics, she paid her political consultant-turned-husband $3 million of campaign funds in 2020. After a series of recent news stories detailing irregular business dealings, questions remain unanswered, including why the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Treasury Department charged with enforcing international sanctions, froze her husband's business account.

I believe America deserves leaders focused on serving their communities, not on serving their own interests or the interests of a narrow, vocal constituency. Over the past several years, we’ve faced significant challenges in our district, country, and worldwide. Countless voters we’ve spoken with have pointed to these challenges and expressed their disappointment, dismay, and hurt over Omar’s words and actions, which consistently have divided our community and delivered us further from solutions.

Thankfully, our democracy empowers us with the tools necessary to get the change in leadership we deserve. The DFL Primary election is on August 13th–and the winner of this contest has gone on to win in November every single time since 1960. Together, we can win. Please join us at www.donsamuels.com.

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Don Samuels is a candidate for Congress in Minnesota's Fifth District and the former CEO of MicroGrants. He has also served three terms on the Minneapolis City Council and one term on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board.