Ilhan Omar wards off Democratic Party challenges, for now

Four years after narrowly surviving a primary challenge, DFL Rep. Ilhan Omar looks increasingly unlikely to face major opposition in her bid for a fifth term representing her deep blue district.

Both Omar’s supporters and detractors say it will be difficult to beat her next year in the Fifth District, even if national campaign groups spend money to influence the race. Her national fundraising, name recognition and strength as a candidate when she’s opposing President Donald Trump will make her more difficult to topple.

She’s also getting an early boost from Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, who are backing her together for the first time, another sign of the congresswoman’s institutional support in the state.

“I don’t know if it’s in anyone’s benefit to run against her this year,” said Democratic operative Julius Hernandez, who worked as a field organizer for Omar’s two-time Democratic opponent, former Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels. “I think she has a really strong case to be made, just on an ideological scale of how she can be an opposition to [Trump].”

Top-tier candidates are bowing out. Samuels, who lost to Omar the last two cycles but came closer than anyone to defeating her, said he won’t run again in 2026. Former House DFL Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, seen as another formidable contender, also told the Minnesota Star Tribune he has no plans to run.

“Whoever thinks that Ilhan should not be elected, whether they be passive voters or big movers and shakers, they really lost a couple opportunities,” Samuels said in an interview.

Even one of Omar’s biggest detractors in Washington, the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has struggled to recruit a challenger. The lobbying group has invested significant funds against members of the progressive Squad, resulting in the primary defeats of two incumbent Democrats. Omar, one of the leading pro-Palestinian voices in Congress, has been a vocal opponent of AIPAC and its influence on U.S. foreign policy decisions concerning Israel.

In endorsing her for re-election, Walz said Omar “boldly champions the values of her district and delivers results for her community.”

“As DFLers, we should come together to get organized and win big,” he added.

Still, Omar’s endorsement of democratic socialist Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley has caused some friction within her district. Reeves recently blasted Omar in a Facebook post for refusing to meet with the local party chair to talk about her endorsement of a “non DFL candidate.”

Reeves could not be reached to talk about the post and neither could Fifth District DFL Chair Scott Graham.

“Though [Omar] doesn’t formally acknowledge ties to the DSA, she is widely seen as their patron saint in the state, and many party members are fed up with what they view as the DSA’s disruptive antics,” said Ben Weisbuch, chair of the DFL Jewish Community Outreach Organization.

Samuels came within nearly two percentage points of winning the Fifth District primary in 2022, surprising Democrats and Omar herself, who vowed to take her challenger seriously in the next cycle. She did, beating him by more than 13 percentage points last fall.

“We feel pretty comfortable in not having too many obstacles to victory. We know that there will always be special interest groups that historically invested in trying to unseat us,” Omar said in an interview. “But hopefully, the voters have been clear that the Fifth [District] is not for sale.”

While pro-Israel outside groups have had success in primaries against other progressive House members, Samuels’ supporters say those groups have failed to show up in the Fifth District with financial support for Omar’s opponents.

“Ilhan is AIPAC’s biggest fundraiser and they always claim they want to get involved in the race, and then they try to get someone in the race and then they don’t back it up with the financial support” that was hoped for, Hernandez said.

A poll was conducted this year asking questions about Omar and Winkler, which Democrats believe was linked to AIPAC. Winkler said he had nothing to do with the poll. AIPAC, its super PAC the United Democracy Project, and the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC did not respond to requests for comment about the poll or the Fifth District race.

Of the more than 700,000 people in Omar’s district, Samuels’ former campaign manager Joe Radinovich says “in theory” a challenger could step up.