Rep. Ilhan Omar easily overcame a challenger in her primary on Tuesday, beating out challenger Don Samuels with 56 percent of the vote to Samuels 43.
With the win, Omar avoided the same fate as two of her progressive Squad colleagues who have been ousted in recent months: Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo.
Pro-Israel groups did not put up the big-dollar donations behind Samuels that they did for Bush and Bowman’s challengers, Wesley Bell and George Latimer.
Omar, who has held the seat in Minnesota’s fifth district since 2018, narrowly defeated Samuels, a former city councilman, two years ago.
She’ll now face off against Republican Dalia Al-Aqidi in the heavily Democratic Minneapolis district.
Pro-Israel group AIPAC vowed to dump $100 million into races to defeat candidates who did not support their cause. They poured $14 million into Bowman’s primary and $9 million into Bush’s.
But they’ve largely steered clear of the Omar- Samuels race, despite the Minnesota congresswoman making it no secret she prefers the Palestinian cause.
Omar outraised Samuels by millions of dollars, spending more than $4 million to Samuels’ $1 million.
Samuels said in an interview last year he believes he could have won the 2022 race if he had AIPAC’s support.
Omar, the first Somali-American elected to Congress, took her seat in 2018 when she won by more than 70 percent of the vote. She was one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
After the outbreak of war in Gaza, the typically united House Democrats have found themselves torn apart on the matter of Israel. Samuels says Omar bears a large part of the blame.
‘It’s because of a very immature interpretation of reality that tends to be dualistic,’ Samuels told DailyMail.com.
‘You got good guys and bad guys. You got pro-police and no police. You’ve got pro-genocide and anti-genocide.’
Omar is a favorite target of Republicans. In 2019 she was forced to apologize for saying AIPAC and Jewish people were trying to buy influence: ‘It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.’ This year, Republicans reacted with dismay when she said some Jewish students are ‘pro-genocide.’
‘I think it is really unfortunate that people don’t care about the fact that all Jewish kids should be kept safe, and that we should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they’re pro-genocide or anti-genocide,’ she said.
In January House GOP Whip Tom Emmer demanded an Ethics investigation into reports that Omar said she is ‘Somalia first.’
Bush, meanwhile, had faced heavy opposition due to her pro-Palestinian stance.
‘Wesley Bell’s victory and Cori Bush’s defeat underscore what we’ve seen in races across the country and throughout this election cycle — being pro-Israel is not just wise policy, but also smart politics,’ said Mark Mellman, chairman of the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, in a statement.
Similar to Bush’s race against Bell, Bowman’s race in New York hinged on a key issue: the Israel-Hamas war.
Bowman, a fellow member of the Squad (at least for now before he leaves Congress this winter), fiercely defended Palestinians and decried the Israeli’s actions as ‘genocide.’
His reward for repeatedly attacking the Jewish nation’s wartime conduct: a pro-Israel SuperPAC coming after him.
AIPAC, a pro-Israel political group, spent massively against Bowman, pumping millions upon millions into the campaign of a local county executive.
With the support of the group, Westchester County Executive Latimer, a moderate Democrat, sailed to an easy primary win, securing over 59 percent of the vote compared to Bowman’s 40 percent.