Minnesota Has Ilhan Omar’s Back

Ilhan Omar, who for years has faced verbal attacks from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Republican congressional leaders such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, found herself in a more ominous circumstance this week. On Monday, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party representative’s Washington, DC, home was raided by federal agents affiliated with the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

The high-profile, headline-grabbing raid reportedly stemmed from tenuous allegations regarding decades-old immigration paperwork filed by her father when Omar was a child. It was launched barely three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, in which Omar is seeking a fifth term in the U.S. House—where the Somali-born representative, veteran peace and justice activist and proud progressive has served as one of the most outspoken critics of the president and his associates.

Omar has made a compelling case that the raid, which took place on the same day that Trump attacked her as “a terrible person” and also endorsed the Republican nominee in the race for an open Minnesota U.S. Senate seat, cannot be understood in isolation from the president’s political vendetta against her. In its formal response to the incident, Omar’s office explained: “This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Representative Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back. Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid. The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong. No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”

Omar herself was unbowed. After assuring her social-media followers, “I’m ok,” she got to the heart of the matter. “Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”

She concluded: “I will not be silenced.”

That is a true statement, whether it is measured by rhetorical or political standards.

There are few near-total-certainties in American politics, but one of them is that Omar will be reelected to the US House of Representatives on November 3.

Overwhelmingly.

Omar represents a solidly Democratic district that has not sent a Republican to Congress since John F. Kennedy was in the White House—and that Republican was Walter Judd, a former missionary who counted Democratic President Harry Truman as a close friend, backed civil rights legislation, and crusaded against poll taxes and other restrictions on voting rights. Ironically, Judd was an outspoken opponent of policies that discriminated against immigrants based on racial and ethnic grounds.

Omar’s DFL predecessors in the seat—iconic liberals and progressives like Don Fraser, Martin Olav Sabo, and Keith Ellison—won election and reelection by wide margins. And, like them, Omar—who first ran in 2018 after Ellison vacated the seat and successfully bid to become Minnesota’s attorney general—has won election after election by wide margins.

If anything, the raid is likely to push Omar’s vote even higher—because Minnesotans are not fools. Within hours of the raid, “Stand With Ilhan” posters were seen across her Minneapolis-based Fifth Congressional District, and a large crowd of supporters rallied to support Omar.

Retiring US Senator Tina Smith, one of the most popular figures on the state’s political scene, explained Monday,

Trump and his DOJ have a bizarre obsession with tearing down Minnesota, our leaders and our communities. This latest action, even as voting has already started in Minnesota, is a transparent attempt to interfere in our elections [emphasis added].

This is their corrupt playbook: Use all the powers of the federal government to attack our leaders. Deploy an out of control, violent federal police force to invade our communities and kill and injure Minnesotans. Launch baseless and hateful attacks on the Somali community. And feed Trump’s longstanding obsession with Representative Omar.

Minnesota won’t stand for it.

The predawn raid by federal agents from the DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations unit was broadly decried by DFL officials in Minnesota as a transparently political targeting of a Muslim woman who is widely recognized as one of the House’s most dynamic and hardworking members.

While anger has focused on the timing of the raid as it relates to Omar’s race for a new term, it could also become a factor in contests for Minnesota’s governorship and for the Senate seat Smith is vacating at a time when control of that chamber is up for grabs..

Minnesota has in recent decades consistently chosen DFL-backed candidates in statewide and presidential contests. But it is an often-competitive state, where statewide elections have frequently been decided by close margins.

This competitiveness has long been on the mind of Trump—who lost Minnesota in his 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential bids, but as recently as Monday claimed, “I thought I won Minnesota three times.”

In a year of increasing political desperation for Republicans, as the president’s approval ratings have tanked nationwide, Trump and members of his administration have been making a lot of moves in Minnesota. In particular, they’ve gone after the large, diverse, and very Democratic city of Minneapolis— with last winter’s deadly “Operation Metro Surge” assault on immigrant communities, with increasingly crude and divisive criticisms of the Somali community, and with ramped-up rhetoric against Omar—whom the president on Monday labeled “totally crooked” even as he asserted that he had nothing to do with the targeting of the representative by the feds.

That targeting took center stage Monday, as the raid turned past practice on its head.

The historic Department of Justice standard regarding investigations of elected officials and candidates—and presumably raids by federal agents on the homes of lawmakers—has been to eschew high-profile actions and announcements during the two months before a general election. Yet Omar was targeted with just weeks to go for her own reelection bid—and for the high-stakes Minnesota Senate race between DFL nominee Peggy Flanagan and well-funded Republican Michele Tafoya. With Republican prospects fading in Senate battleground states such as North Carolina and Georgia, Tafoya’s bid has grabbed the attention of Republicans. Indeed, just hours after the raid on Omar’s home, Trump directed a message to Minnesotans, announcing, “You have to vote for Michele Tafoya, who’s a very respected person.”

Veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod took note. “We do not know the nature of the probe against Omar. But it is highly unlikely that it’s so serious and urgent that the government felt they needed to act publicly three weeks before the election instead of after,” he observed. “Unless that’s precisely WHY they acted now, not to defeat her—they can’t—but to stir up the muck in Minnesota to try and win a Senate seat.”

Flanagan seized on the endorsement, declaring Monday, “Donald Trump wants you to vote for Michele Tafoya. I’m asking you to vote for the future Minnesotans deserve—one without Trump’s chaos and cruelty. That’s the choice in this race.” On the same day, the Senate candidate defended Omar, saying, “Minnesotans will not be intimidated by Donald Trump. Neither will Ilhan Omar. Especially three weeks out from an election.”

Omar, an early and ardent supporter of Flanagan’s progressive candidacy, confirmed the Senate candidate’s point on Monday. In a statement read to her supporters at the Minneapolis rally, Omar told Minnesotans, “I’ll be home soon to get out the vote.”