Minnesota's Democrat party pulls endorsement for democratic-socialist Fateh for Minneapolis mayor

Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has vacated its endorsement of democratic-socialist state Sen. Omar Fateh for Minneapolis mayor, after a review panel found flaws in the voting process.

Fateh is challenging the more centrist incumbent Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey.

He initially received an endorsement from the city's Democratic Party at last month's convention. Fateh was the first mayoral candidate in the city to get the local party's support since 2009, The New York Times reported.

However, on Thursday, Minnesota state Democratic Party officials withdrew the Minneapolis chapter’s endorsement, citing “substantial failures” during the convention, which had technological and procedural irregularities. In Minnesota, the state party is called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

With the endorsement, Fateh would have had access to party resources and valuable voter databases for his campaign, which would have helped in his race against Frey, a two-term incumbent who has raised significantly more money.

Fateh has been compared to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, as they both seek to move their cities further left by taxing the wealthy to build affordable housing, capping rent increases, and overhauling how public safety resources are spent. Each are democratic socialists, Muslim and have African roots.

The Fateh campaign's co-manager, Graham Faulkner, criticized the revocation of the endorsement.

“Our campaign sees this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucusgoers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day,” Faulkner said. “The establishment is threatened by our message.”

Frey, who filed the complaint over the convention's fairness, said regarding the revoked endorsement, “I am proud to be a member of a party that believes in correcting our mistakes, and I am glad that this inaccurate and obviously flawed process was set aside.”

The Minneapolis mayoral race has no primary, and the election in November is nonpartisan.

State Democratic Party officials said Thursday that during the convention the online voting system had a meltdown that resulted in a “substantial undercount” in the first balloting. 

The undercount disqualified a third candidate, DeWayne Davis, from advancing to an additional round, per the party's review. Also, a registration check-in sheet was not properly secured, “resulting in the opportunity to replace, delete or alter ballot ID numbers.”

The report did not find any improper actions committed by campaigns.

Also on Thursday, state party officials placed the city’s party on probation for two years. The city’s party has had several conventions in recent years that ended in disputed outcomes, with some resulting in violence.