Anika Begay
Politics
/
August 15, 2024
Running as an outspoken advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza, Omar dramatically increased her margin of victory in the Democratic primary. Shouldn’t we be paying more attention?
Ilhan Omar speaks during a press conference calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, outside the U.S. Capitol, November 13, 2023.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
There has never been any doubt about where U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, DFL-Minnesota, stands on the issue of the Gaza ceasefire. For 10 months, she has said, “I am committed to peace and an early ceasefire.” She was also an original sponsor of the House ceasefire resolution and has supported every honest effort to end the violence and save Palestinian lives.
On Tuesday, Omar won re-election to her House seat against a prominent, well-funded opponent who has made criticism of the representative’s outspoken advocacy for Palestinian rights a key part of her campaign. Notably, she narrowly failed to pass. Omar beat her rival, former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, by 14 points, a huge expansion of her margin of victory from 2022, when Samuels was two points away from defeat.
Omar’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party primary victory secures re-election in her overwhelmingly DFL district, and the representative was in a celebratory mood Tuesday night.
“We run the politics of joy,” Omar announced to supporters at her victory party in Minneapolis. “We know it’s a joy to want to live in a peaceful and equitable world.”
But this is not just another primary result.
Omar’s big win should be big news. After all, just last week, the narrow defeat of Cori Bush, Omar’s close ally in the fight to save lives in Gaza, was treated as a major political development. The same happened in June, when New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman was defeated for reelection in that state’s primary.
Current number
There is no doubt that it is significant when critics of the assault on Gaza are defeated, even when those defeats result less from a rejection of their positions than from massive spending by political action committees associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supports far-right policies in Israel, and billionaire Republican donors from across the country. But it is also significant that most of the House’s outspoken supporters of a ceasefire have won their candidacies for re-election.
For the most part, they’ve done it the way Omar did, building multiracial and multiethnic coalitions and developing bases of small, progressive donors (Omar has raised about $6.2 million for this year’s race) that are so strong that AIPAC-aligned super PACs like the United Democracy Project and their billionaire allies have been spooked.
But isn’t that fact at least as significant as the detail of the successes AIPAC achieved only after mounting multimillion-dollar campaigns against Democrats like Bush and Bowman? Isn’t it a significant political development that Omar, who, because of her tight 2022 primary, entered the 2024 election as potentially one of the most vulnerable of the pro-ceasefire incumbents, has proven herself unbeatable? Shouldn’t it be noted that Omar has articulated her position so skillfully, expressing horror at the October 7 Hamas attack targeting Israeli kibbutzim and a music festival, while at the same time condemning attacks on Palestinian civilians and Gaza’s infrastructure by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has won support from Muslims, Christians, and Jews for his re-election bid? Isn’t it a consequence that Omar did such a good job of organizing her supporters and winning the support of the DFL, that AIPAC recognized she couldn’t be defeated? And that she ultimately won the primary by more than 16,000 votes?
Isn’t it remarkable that Omar wasn’t the only one to win? That the four original members of “The Squad” (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Omar) all, as ardent ceasefire supporters, won their primaries or positioned themselves to run for reelection without serious opposition? Isn’t it equally remarkable that the vast majority of ceasefire-supporting House members seeking reelection this year (from Greg Casar of Texas to Delia Ramirez of Chicago, from Summer Lee of Pennsylvania to Mark Pocan of Wisconsin) ran for reelection with widespread support?
Results from across the country confirm IfNotNow Movement national spokeswoman Eva Borgwardt said: “Being in favor of the ceasefire is good politics and good policy.”
Equally important, the results of Ilhan Omar’s Minnesota primary victory on Tuesday highlight a fundamental reality of the 2024 election cycle: In fair contests, where massive outside spending by billionaire-backed Super PACs doesn’t distort the process, ceasefire advocates don’t just win. They win big.
“This year has clearly demonstrated that right-wing interests and MAGA mega-donors see the Squad as an existential threat to their extremist agenda. In nearly every primary this cycle, our progressive champions in Congress have faced organized efforts by AIPAC, Republican mega-donors, right-wing Super PACs, and corporate interests who are united in their desire to drag our democracy through the mud to protect their own interests and profits,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, a group that has organized support for Squad members and their allies, following Omar’s victory. “This race looks more like what our democracy could look like if we ended the bottomless influence and spending of dirty-money corporate Super PACs in our elections and put people back at the center of our democracy and democracy at the center of our party.”
This is a lesson for Democrats, including Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, going forward. The call for a ceasefire in Gaza is not just morally right. It is popular with the American people. And every effort should be made to ensure that it is not silenced by out-of-town super PACs and right-wing billionaire donors meddling in the Democratic primary.
Popular
“swipe left down to see more authors”Scroll →
Can we count on you?
In the upcoming election, the fate of our democracy and basic civil rights are at stake. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are planning to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision at every level of government if he wins.
We have already witnessed events that fill us with both terror and cautious optimism, in all of this, The nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and a champion of bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, parsed J.D. Vance’s shallow right-wing populist appeals, and discussed the path to a Democratic victory in November.
Stories like these and the one you just read are vital at this critical moment in our country’s history. Now more than ever, we need independent, lucid, and deeply researched journalism to make sense of headlines and separate fact from fiction. Donate today and join our 160-year legacy of speaking truth to power and elevating the voices of grassroots advocates.
Throughout 2024, and in what will likely be the defining election of our lifetimes, we need your support to continue publishing the eye-opening journalism you rely on.
Thank you,
The editors of The nation
More from The nation
Palestinian Americans have learned that the Democratic Party will bomb your homeland, kill your family, use your money to do it, and still expect your vote.
Layla Saliba – The best of Layla Saliba
The media went wild over Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails in 2016. But when Trump’s campaign messages leaked this year, the standards changed.
Chris Lehman
Public interventions (roads, bus shelters, subway cars), New York City, 2024.
OppArt
/
May Lorian
