UPDATE: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Wins Third Term

The Minneapolis mayor race is over, after another round of ranked choice vote counting gave Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey a majority, defeating his top opponent State Sen. Omar Fateh and a dozen other candidates.

Frey last night had taken the lead with 41.8% of the vote, failing to cross the threshold of 50% plus one vote, meaning the race moved to the second round of tabulation. Fateh, the challenger most likely to unseat Frey, received 31.7% of the vote, while the Rev. DeWayne Davis received 13.7%. All other candidates received only 12.8%.

But now Frey has crossed the threshold.

In ranked-choice voting, voters select candidates for their first, second, and third choices. If, as happened here, no one candidate clears the threshold to win outright when the first choices have been tabulated, election officials determine which candidates cannot mathematically win. Voters who selected a losing candidate as their first choice will have their second choice counted, and the process continues until one candidate clears the threshold.

Frey, a Reform Jew, ran as a more pro-police candidate, insisting that Minneapolis needs more police even while he celebrated his program to build out non-police “violence interrupters” in the city.

Fateh, a Somali Muslim and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, previously supported a measure to replace the city’s police force, but has since said he would rather supplement officers with non-police responders.

While Minnesota’s version of the Democratic Party—the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party—shares near parity with the Republican Party statewide, the DFL and the Democratic Socialists of America dominate most Minneapolis politics. A DFL convention endorsed Fateh, but the party later rescinded the endorsement.

Shane Mekeland, a Republican in the Minnesota House of Representatives, told The Daily Signal that Fateh is “dangerous.” He recalled a situation where Fateh refused to show up for a House vote, tying up the chamber for 13 hours, until legislators agreed to include his bill in an omnibus spending bill. Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., vetoed the bill when it passed independently, but he could not line-item veto an omnibus spending bill.

Mekeland noted that Walz recently campaigned with Frey.

“There is no love lost between those two,” the Republican said, referring to Fateh and Walz.

Mekeland also suggested Fateh’s support from the Somali community in Minneapolis may win him the governor’s mansion. He cited a Project Veritas video from 2020 in which a Somali man alleged widespread fraud in Minnesota, aiming at supporting Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Omar emphatically rejected the claims, saying they were not true. Researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington claimed in an interview with The New York Times that the video was part of a disinformation effort. The original Project Veritas source later backtracked. The Daily Signal has reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department, which reportedly opened an investigation.

“There’s a lot riding on this” election, Mekeland told The Daily Signal. “Minneapolis will be gone. It will be over.”

This story has been updated to reflect Frey’s victory.

The post UPDATE: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Wins Third Term appeared first on The Daily Signal.