DFL to Omar Fateh: the endorsement is vacated

A month ago (July 10,20215), I wrote this article about State Sen. Omar Fateh after he'd supposedly won the DFL's endorsement to be Minneapolis's next mayor. Fast forward 32 days. Life has quickly changed for Sen. Fateh. He's no longer the DFL-endorsed candidate for mayor due to a slew of irregularities.

KSTP is reporting "The Minnesota DFL vacated its endorsement of State Sen. Omar Fateh for Minneapolis mayor after a review panel found glaring flaws in the voting process. A flurry of challenges were submitted to the state DFL in the wake of last month’s Minneapolis DFL Convention, pointing out issues with the electronic voting system and questioning whether a quorum was present for the final ballot that clinched Fateh’s endorsement over incumbent Jacob Frey."

These irregularities aren't routine errors, either. These were transformative, game-changing mistakes. These operational mistakes play into the DFL's reputation of not being able to get things right the first time. (Think Housing Stabilization Services and Feeding Our Futures) as high-profile mistakes. Check this out:

The Minneapolis DFL also admitted it erroneously eliminated DeWayne Davis after the first round of voting due to an undercount of 176 votes.

"After a thoughtful and transparent review of the challenges, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee found substantial failures in the Minneapolis Convention’s voting process on July 19th, including an acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention," DFL Party Chairman Richard Carlbom said in a statement. "As a result, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee has vacated the mayoral endorsement."

Mr. Carlbom's spin is rich. There was nothing thoughtful about the voting at the Convention. This was as sloppy as voting at the Democrats' Iowa Caucuses in 2020. Democrats still don't know who won that year's caucuses. In this interview, former DFL State Party Chair Mike Erlandson said something shocking:

He highlighted as fact that "25% of the delegates' votes were not counted on the first ballot." How is that possible? That hasn't happened at a GOP endorsing convention. Fateh isn't going down without a fight:

Fateh’s short-lived endorsement was the first for a Minneapolis mayoral candidate in 16 years. The self-described democratic socialist quickly drew comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, who won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. Now, Fateh’s campaign claims "establishment Democrats, including many Frey supporters," coordinated an effort to throw out his endorsement.

"Our campaign sees this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucus-goers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day," said Graham Faulkner, Fateh’s co-campaign manager. "The establishment is threatened by our message. They are scared of a politics that really stands up to corporate interests and with our working class neighbors."

That's foolishness. Occam's Razor applied says that the simplest explanation is the most likely explanation. When it comes to running things, the DFL is perfectly worthless. I wou;ldn't trust the DFL to run a children's lemonade stand. It's that simple. One last big thing:

After its review, the DFL Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee (CBRC) also placed the Minneapolis DFL on probation for two years, requiring the chapter to “submit a best practices plan and a plan for compliance” to the DFL State Executive Committee.

That isn't routine. That's legitimate punishment.

UPDATE:

Since Omar Fateh is now accused of cheating, here’s a reminder:

His brother-in-law, Muse Mohamed was convicted of lying to a grand jury about illegally handling absentee ballots tied to ballot harvesting.

Investigators later confirmed he did, in fact, handle those ballots. pic.twitter.com/iKERUDV1Kz

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) August 21, 2025