Socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong announced Tuesday she received the endorsement of Minnesota state Sen. Omar Fateh. Fateh is a democratic socialist who lost the 2025 Minneapolis mayoral race after the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party revoked his local party endorsement over voting irregularities.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany quickly responded. “So the guy Minneapolis thought was too crazy to elect as mayor is now endorsing Francesca Hong?” Tiffany posted. “We always say, ‘Don’t Minnesota our Wisconsin.’ But this is worse because even Minneapolis rejected him.”
Fateh, the first Somali American and Muslim elected to the Minnesota Senate, ran as a democratic socialist backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. He secured the Minneapolis DFL endorsement in July 2025 over incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey. Weeks later, the state party stripped it, citing flawed voting processes and technical failures at the convention. Fateh’s campaign was later fined for distributing materials claiming the endorsement after it was revoked. Voters ultimately chose Frey in the ranked-choice contest.
Fateh has faced prior ethics scrutiny in Minnesota, including a state Senate investigation tied to his brother-in-law’s federal perjury conviction involving absentee ballots from Fateh’s 2020 campaign and questions over campaign payments to a Somali-language media outlet.
The endorsement fits a pattern for Hong, who previously secured support from U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, another Somali Minnesota progressive. Hong has called for abolishing ICE, advocated defunding and abolishing police departments, and supports a statewide moratorium on new data centers. Critics argue these positions mirror progressive policies that coincided with high-profile welfare fraud scandals, rising crime, and fiscal strain in Minnesota.
Wisconsin conservatives have long used the phrase “Don’t Minnesota our Wisconsin” as a shorthand warning against importing the neighboring state’s higher taxes, sanctuary-style policies, and social-program dysfunction. Tiffany and other Republicans say Hong’s embrace of Fateh makes that warning more urgent as the Aug. 11 Democratic primary approaches.
Hong’s campaign has framed the endorsement as evidence of a growing Midwest progressive movement. Republicans counter that it underscores how far left the Democratic frontrunner sits in a purple state that voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2024.
