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Omar Fateh, a young democratic socialist, beat out an establishment Democrat for the party’s endorsement in Minneapolis. But the parallels with Zohran Mamdani in New York might end there.
July 23, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET
He’s a young democratic socialist with an immigrant story, a Muslim mayoral candidate who defeated the Democratic establishment in a recent intraparty contest.
On the left and the right, the comparison has been irresistible: State Senator Omar Fateh of Minnesota, the argument goes, could be Minneapolis’s version of Zohran Mamdani, the left-wing assemblyman from Queens whose victory in New York City’s mayoral primary last month sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.
“From NYC to Minneapolis — change is coming!” declared the Twin Cities chapter of Democratic Socialists of America last weekend, after Mr. Fateh received the endorsement of the Minneapolis chapter of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota’s version of the Democratic Party, at a chaotic gathering last weekend.
The endorsement passed over Mayor Jacob Frey, 44, a two-term incumbent who has clashed with more left-wing members of the City Council. Mr. Frey’s re-election campaign is among those challenging the D.F.L.’s endorsement.
At every level of government, Democratic primaries are testing the ideological and stylistic mood of a party left adrift by its disastrous defeats last fall, with strategists and activists parsing Mr. Mamdani’s stunning victory for early clues about voter sentiment ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
But while the Minneapolis mayor’s race will offer another measure of Democratic attitudes around policing and affordability, as well as of the electorate’s appetite for change, the parallels with New York City, beyond surface level, are limited so far.
