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Dems in disarray: DFL revocation of Fateh endorsement polarizes party • Minnesota Reformer [1]

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Date: 2025-08-22

What had been a polarizing election for Minneapolis mayor has exploded into a full-blown political crisis for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and a group of prominent Minneapolis Democrats Thursday released a statement condemning the state party for revoking the DFL convention endorsement of mayoral candidate Sen. Omar Fateh, who would be the city’s first Somali-American mayor if elected in November.

“A small group of DFL board members, a majority living outside Minneapolis, met privately to overturn the will of Minneapolis delegates who volunteered, organized, and participated in a months-long DFL process. It is inexcusable to overturn the results weeks after the convention because board members did not like the outcome,” wrote the group, which also comprised state Sens. Zaynab Mohamed and Doron Clark, state Reps. Aisha Gomez, Fue Lee, Mohamud Noor, Sydney Jordan and Esther Agbaje and several members of the City Council and Hennepin County Board.

The statement notes a majority of the DFL committee that revoked the endorsement Thursday don’t live in Minneapolis, while also drawing an ideological contrast between “progressive democrats who are challenging the status quo and moderate democrats.” It also alleges “blatant corruption” via “the influence of big money in our politics.”

Though his name goes unmentioned, the statement is a pointed rebuke of state DFL Chair Richard Carlbom, who was hand-picked by Gov. Tim Walz to succeed current DNC Chair Ken Martin.

The ruling and report, released on Thursday from the state party following a formal complaint by the Frey campaign, paints a portrait of a convention so dysfunctional that the Minneapolis DFL is on “probation” for two years. Carlbom reached for comity with an anodyne statement announcing the decision, telling Democrats to move on: “Now it’s time to turn our focus to unity and our common goal: electing DFL leaders focused on making life more affordable for Minnesotans and holding Republicans accountable for the chaos and confusion they’ve unleashed on Minnesotans.”

Not so, Omar and the progressives responded in a thunderous finale: “This decision will be a stain on our party for years to come and damage our ability to organize for Democratic wins this year, next year, and beyond.”

Unions backing Fateh — including SEIU and Unite HERE — called a Friday press conference, an ominous sign for a party where the “L” in DFL is still a major source of campaign foot soldiers and money.

Carlbom’s ties to Mayor Jacob Frey, whose campaign launched the challenge, only fueled suspicions about a cozy relationship between the state party and the incumbent: The firm of which Carlbom was a partner until he was elected DFL chair last year — United Strategies — has received some $30,000 in consulting fees from the Frey campaign this year.

Carlbom seems to have been in a difficult spot, however. The report details an electronic voting system that the committee calls “substantially flawed.” The narrative describes an old version of the spreadsheet software Excel, powered by broken formulas, and a massive undercounting during the first round of voting. Hours of challenges and delay followed. The credentials sheet was left unsecured and apparently accessed by people who shouldn’t have had access, including the campaigns. Another candidate, DeWayne Davis, secured enough votes to move on to the next round but was wrongly excluded. The entire Ward 5 credentials book was lost. The final vote was a show of hands.

For Fateh defenders, the convention problems — and the entire challenge — are all noise because they insist Frey had no chance to win, while Fateh merely needed to consolidate the anti-Frey delegates for the victory they say has now been unjustly revoked.

Now, Carlbom and other prominent Democrats must deal with the potential fallout, which could anger progressives across the river and into the newly blue suburbs. Even if the rage were to remain local, however, the consequences could be substantial. The 5th Congressional District, which encompasses Minneapolis, delivered 293,00 votes to Vice President Kamala Harris last year, some 40,000 more than the DFL-rich 3rd and 4th Districts.

If progressives stay home next year or even feel less inclined to volunteer, that could help Republicans achieve their first statewide win in 20 years.

Jeff Blodgett, a longtime DFL consultant who managed the campaigns of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, said he’s confident Democrats will find unity out of purpose next year: “The stakes in these election are so high that I don’t think people are going to boycott them due to frustrations with intraparty DFL controversies.” He called Carlbom a “dynamic chair” who is leading a state DFL that is well funded and doing off-year organizing and messaging that will pay off next year.

Still, the divisive mayoral race is just the latest challenge to beset Democrats, the list of mistakes and misfortunes growing seemingly by the day. From the farcical — a state senator’s second drunk driving arrest while in office; the felony conviction of a different state senator — to the tragic, in the form of the assassination of House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.

The party also has real, substantial differences it must either resolve or — more likely — learn to live with. Israel’s war on Gaza, for instance, has riven the party, often along demographic lines, with young progressives supporting the boycott, divest and sanctions movement and accusing older Democrats like Sen. Amy Klobuchar — who has also endorsed Frey — of complicity in genocide.

The DFL’s struggles, after a long run of governance, evoke some similarities to national Democrats of the late 1960s: A party dominant since FDR’s New Deal but then exhausted and fractured by the Vietnam War, civil unrest and urban disorder, changing demographics, racial struggle, countercultural anthesis — and the murder of beloved leaders.

The climactic scene of 1968 also took place at a political convention, this one in Chicago, where the emerging New Left were embittered at the defeat of their insurgent antiwar candidate Sen. Eugene McCarthy.

What followed was a period of Republican dominance that has helped shape the country we live in today.

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[1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/08/22/dems-in-disarray-dfl-revocation-of-fateh-endorsement-polarizes-party/

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