For the second cycle in a row, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is facing a serious primary challenger. Former Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels announced Thursday that his campaign had raised $350,000 in the month since its launch, with 75 percent in contributions under $100 and $320,000 cash on hand. Omar’s fundraising has been slower, pulling in $275,000 in the first quarter with an average donation of $13, with a total of $500,000 on hand.
The Minneapolis primary will focus heavily on the question of policing. Over the past two years, the first count in the party establishment’s indictment of its progressive wing has been the push to “defund the police,” with President Joe Biden explicitly targeting the slogan during his State of the Union address and following it up with an infusion of cash for cops.
The debate entered the national spotlight again this week after a man shot 10 people on a subway train in New York City on Tuesday and police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, released video of an officer who shot and killed 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head during a traffic stop earlier this month. In the wake of the mass shooting in New York, Mayor Eric Adams swiftly called for more police to proliferate, while hundreds of protesters in Grand Rapids took to the streets to demand that they be kept in check.
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