Omar’s slim victory could spell end for ‘defund the police’ movement

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) near loss Tuesday to a centrist pro-police Democrat demonstrated the waning popularity of the “defund the police” movement in the Democratic Party as voters are grappling with an uptick in crime and what some see as the need for more policing in their communities.

Omar, who led the charge of the anti-police campaign following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, narrowly defeated Don Samuels, a centrist Democrat who campaigned against defunding the police. The near upset showed the vulnerability of the progressive “Squad” member and how her policing position is increasingly out of step not only with leaders of the Democratic Party, including President Joe Biden, but also with her constituents back home.

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“She’s fortunate to have won,” Larry Jacobs, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, told the Washington Examiner of Omar’s results. “She barely won this election, and that’s a message to potential challengers that they could be the ones to knock her out.”

Omar, a member of the far-left Squad, was first elected in 2018 to a Minneapolis-area district. Her victory this week against Samuels is projected to clock in around 3,000 votes, a significantly tighter race than her 2020 primary, in which she cruised to victory by approximately 35,000 votes.

Minneapolis became something of a ground zero among activists who embrace policies under an umbrella some call “defund the police” to reduce policing or divert those resources to other social services after footage of the murder of Floyd in police custody sparked public outcry over issues of police brutality. Omar embraced the label, as did several other progressive House Democrats, a source of friction between the party’s left wing and centrist flanks.

Jacobs called crime and policing a “central issue” of the primary, noting that many of Omar’s constituents may have felt alienated by her position on an ultimately unsuccessful ballot measure to end the city’s police department after Floyd’s murder.

David Schultz, a professor of political science and legal studies at Hamline University in Saint Paul, told the Washington Examiner that Samuels ran on an issue that carried weight with voters, but a largely conventional campaign operation as a traditional Democrat may have hurt his chances at an upset victory over Omar.

“And I still think had he run a better campaign, he could have won, but at the end of the day, I thought he ran a very conventional campaign,” Schultz said. “He was, like, your classic television, radio newspaper, did some social media — but not very strong.”

Schultz said Samuels may have been successful in his primary bid if he’d hit the issue of crime even harder as crime rates rise in parts of Minneapolis.

“I generally think when you appeal to people’s sense of personal fear, that generally mobilizes people because they’re scared,” Schultz said.

Schultz said Omar became “the face in Minneapolis of ‘defund the police’ after George Floyd’s murder” and has a certain notoriety from frequent battles with then-President Donald Trump. She built a following with her robust social media and get-out-the-vote operations in a solid-blue district with young voters.

But she had a number of other weaknesses, including not being “well known for constituent service,” stances on Israel that could alienate some of a not-insignificant Jewish population in the district, as well as being left with a slightly more suburban district than she previously had after the state’s redistricting process, Schultz said.

Samuels, Schultz argued, may have won with a slightly different approach to campaigning.

Omar’s troubles are the latest example of how “defund the police” slogans aren’t showing signs of helping Democrats nationally, Jacobs said. He pointed to a recent San Francisco vote to recall then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin as another.

Arguing the slogan will be politically toxic for the Democrats in the midterm elections, a group of more centrist House members is pushing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to hold a vote on legislation that would bring more funding for law enforcement.

In a concession speech, Samuels argued that unseating an incumbent is difficult, but a close race shows that the district is open to a more centrist candidate who supports police, such as himself.

“We will not be discouraged,” Samuels said. “We will not be discouraged because we were in the right. We took the temperature of our community, and we were correct.”

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But Omar and her allies do not seem deterred just yet. The same day as Omar’s primary, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) defended the slogan on Twitter as a right-wing lawmaker made similar comments about the FBI after Trump disclosed a raid at his Florida residence. ”’Defund the police’ is what many grieving communities called for to demilitarize policing in the wake of racialized police killings,” the fellow Squad member wrote.