U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Tuesday put a stop to the losing streak that the “Squad” of progressive Democrats in the House had been on this summer.
Omar, the incumbent of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, beat her primary challenger, Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis City Council member who nearly defeated her in the same race in 2022, with the help of a $350,000 contribution from the United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
But this result wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Just ask Nina Turner.
“They specifically target Black progressives,” said Turner, a former Ohio state legislator who in 2022 was defeated in a Democratic congressional primary by current U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, who received support from the Democratic Majority for Israel, an AIPAC ally. “They do not care about hungry babies, unemployed mommies and daddies, or the struggle. … They only care about the positioning of that person to Israel, a foreign country.”
Samuels was the latest Democratic challenger this year to take on a member of the Squad, whose members include staunch critics of U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.
Last year, AIPAC’s leaders promised to spend up to $100 million to defeat every member of the Squad during the 2024 election cycle. Turner told Capital B that the group, its allies, and affiliated super PACs have succeeded in undermining candidates whose policies are overwhelmingly supported by Black Americans across the nation.
AIPAC’s critics, including supporters of the Squad and some progressive activists, have accused the group and its affiliates of deploying misinformation and racist campaign ads among other tactics intended to defeat progressive Black and brown candidates.
AIPAC counters that it has never been anti-Black and that it backs Black candidates aligned with its mission of supporting Israel, including some of the Squad’s challengers. The group has also donated to the campaigns of more than half of the Congressional Black Caucus, according to The Intercept.
Still, some organizers on the left characterize AIPAC’s involvement in the primary challenges as an effort to undermine a progressive legislative agenda that includes protecting voting rights, enacting police reform, battling homelessness, and pushing for higher wages — all issues important to many Black voters — for the sake of advancing of Israeli foreign policy concerns.
“AIPAC and their donors are threatened by working-class people having working-class representation because the interests they advance are the interests of everyday people,” Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the progressive PAC known as Justice Democrats, told Capital B on Monday.
“This is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.”
Omar holds the line
Whether as a result of pro-Israel groups’ campaigning or their own political missteps, the Squad suffered big losses this primary season. Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, a diverse city with many left-leaning voters, bucked that trend.
Samuels painted himself as a pragmatist willing to work across the political spectrum. He cast Omar as an uncompromising radical who alienates even those within her own party, rebuking her for opposing President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, which she saw as not going far enough.
AIPAC may not have viewed this primary as fertile ground for an upset, as it did with the challenges to U.S. Reps. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri. Those were races in which the group poured financial support to help defeat Squad incumbents this year., But it didn’t directly target Omar this cycle by buying campaign ads that championed her challenger.
Still, Samuels and some of his supporters worked to make Israel a top issue in the campaign.
Samuels railed against Omar for criticizing Israel’s reprisal against Gaza following Hamas’ attack on the country last October, and even called her a “pawn for Hamas” and claimed that her opinions are “the last straw in a long series of insensitive statements about Israel and Jewish people.” The Intercept reported on Sunday that a group calling itself “Zionists for Don Samuels” was using WhatsApp to coordinate their efforts to defeat Omar.
Of all the members of the Squad to face primary challenges so far, Omar was best poised to succeed.
Her fundraising haul dwarfed Samuels’. In her pre-primary financial report, she recorded raising $6.2 million, more than four times what Samuels raked in and more than double what she accrued two years ago, according to the Associated Press. That positioned her to fend off her challenger’s campaign, which Omar’s team said had received donations from right-wing and Republican-supporting donors, per Mother Jones.
“[Pro-Israel groups] really don’t like Ilhan Omar. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Larry Jacobs, a political scientist and the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, told the Star Tribune last month. “But they just don’t see the probability of a win there being adequate enough to justify a substantial investment.”
Omar emphasized her various legislative accomplishments and endeavors, from directing $54 million toward community project funding to feeding about 30 million children via the MEALS Act to fighting to cancel student loan debt.
It’s those types of policies that Turner and others say get lost as groups backing Israel elevate foreign policy as an issue in local congressional races. AIPAC, though, says that it has supported candidates with strong ties to both Black constituents and its primary concern.
“Any allegation or suggestion that our support or opposition is based on race is categorically false,” AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann told Capital B. “It is entirely consistent with progressive values to stand with America’s democratic ally, Israel.”
This story has been updated.