Democratic voters in Minnesota will decide Tuesday whether another member of the progressive House group known as the "Squad" suffers the same fate as two colleagues who recently lost primary challenges.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs, faces a rematch with former Minneapolis City Council member Dan Samuels, who she narrowly beat in 2022, 50.3% to 48.2%.
Fellow Squad members Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri and Rep. Jamal Bowman were both defeated in primaries held last week and in June, respectively.
Their challengers were both backed by millions of dollars in spending by the United Democracy Project, a super political action committee affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to the Associated Press.
But AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups have stayed out of the Omar-Williams race, the Star Tribune newspaper reported late last month.
Omar, an outspoken critic of Israel who's faced accusations of antisemitism, told the Star Tribune for a Tuesday report that the groups' absence suggested they didn't think Samuels could win and were "not interested in probably wasting their money."
Samuels countered that Omar, a former state legislator, faced "increasing concern about her performance" and called her "an anomaly in the Fifth District for the amount of challenges she's had" during her three House campaigns.
Minnesota has open primaries and some Republicans have urged GOP voters to cross party lines to cast ballots for Samuels, leading Omar to call them "vile MAGA Republicans."
An Omar campaign poll in July showed her ahead, 60% to 33%, up from the 49% to 39% edge she held in a February poll for Samuels' campaign, according to the FiveThirtyEight website.
