The University of Minnesota’s Minta, however, pointed to a number of missteps Omar had made at home. For instance, she didn’t back Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s reelection bid in part because he didn’t support the amendment change to replace the city’s police department. Frey, in turn, endorsed Omar’s main primary opponent, former Minneapolis City Council and school board member Don Samuels.2 There’s not a ton of recent polling on Frey, but a September survey suggests that a majority of the city’s Black voters view him in a favorable light. “I think that having the incumbent mayor against you may have divided Omar’s coalition,” Minta said.

Samuels also repeatedly criticized Omar for her support of replacing the city’s police department with a Department of Public Safety, a bid which ultimately failed by roughly 12 points in November. Minta told me that Omar’s support for this ballot measure could have angered Black and white voters who didn’t want to disband the police department but wanted to reform it instead. On top of that, Omar has continued to call for police reform, which puts her at odds with other Democrats in the area who have moved away from calling for sweeping police reform in the years after George Floyd’s murder in police custody. Frey, for example, once promised to reform and rebuild the city’s police department but later retreated from this pledge. Samuels, meanwhile, attempted to make the race against Omar a referendum on that November vote by touting his past support for more resources and better training for police officers versus annihilating the department completely.