Incumbent Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey won reelection to a third term following a campaign that unfolded amid prolonged internal Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) disputes over the convention endorsement process.
The DFL is the Democratic party in Minnesota.
Frey’s victory comes after a year that included extensive statewide scrutiny over the Minneapolis Democrat party’s internal handling of mayoral endorsement procedures. Party officials revoked State Sen. Omar Fateh’s (D) endorsement in August, citing convention voting failures and verified errors in the electronic vote count following a July convention where Fateh had initially received support.
Fateh, a democratic socialist who is the first Somali American and Muslim elected to the Minnesota Senate, criticized the reversal as “insider games” and continued his campaign. Fateh’s campaign drew backing and public appearances from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York before the August revocation.
Fateh’s platform during the race included raising the city’s minimum wage to $20 per hour by 2028, increasing non-police emergency response teams, lobbying for a local income tax on higher earners, blocking cooperation between local police and federal immigration enforcement, carbon fees, expanding immigrant-rights initiatives, and alternative public safety systems.
In 2023, as a Minnesota state senator, Fateh helped advance legislation for taxpayer-funded tuition for undocumented students and has referred to policing as “systemically white supremacist.”
Past Breitbart News reporting noted Fateh’s returned campaign funds tied to a Feeding Our Future fraud investigation and a volunteer during a prior campaign who was convicted for lying to a grand jury. Fateh also opened his campaign office for George Floyd protesters in 2020 and has advocated banning tear gas and rubber bullets.
Frey’s (D) time in office has included national attention for comments related to city policy and major events. In June 2020, he knelt at George Floyd’s coffin and defended pandemic-era mask guidance during protests.
During the same period, at a protest in Minneapolis, demonstrators told Frey to leave after he declined to commit to abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department. Footage showed protesters repeatedly booing him, chanting for him to “go home,” and one speaker telling him to “get the f*** out of here” when he answered “no” to whether he would defund the police.
Earlier this year, Frey said that undocumented residents in Minneapolis “are not illegal aliens” and called them “our neighbors,” adding, “We care about them, we love them,” during a Fox 9 interview about a Wisconsin judge’s immigration-related arrest case.
After the Catholic school shooting at a Minneapolis church, Frey remarked in an ABC interview that there is no reason why a person “should be able to buy a gun one month and then buy a gun the next month and then the next month after that” and argued, “This is about guns,” and “We do need to take action.” In a separate NewsNation interview about whether gender dysphoria played any role in the shooting, Frey stated, “I can’t speak to what is in a different individual’s brain or mind,” and claimed, “Anybody that is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community has lost their sense of common humanity.”
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