Friends — thanks to the power of our movement, we won tonight!

You helped prove once again that in Minnesota, we don’t just welcome refugees — we send them back to Congress.

As a little girl huddled in a refugee camp, displaced from a civil war that tore my birth country of Somalia apart, I just wanted to make it out alive. The United States of America felt like a dream, something that you imagine in your twilight hours, not a reality you will ever be able to experience firsthand.

To me, my very presence on this earth and in my beautiful state of Minnesota is more than I ever expected. Today, having the privilege of serving in the United States Congress representing the community that welcomed me with open arms as a little girl is truly beyond my wildest dreams.

So I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for putting your faith in me, for standing with me through one of the most difficult times for our country. We have survived a wannabe fascist president, a pandemic that took so many of our family members, the murder of George Floyd and the uprising that followed. So I know we can overcome whatever they throw at us over the next two years.

But this seat has never been for me.

It is for the working mom who struggles with $20,000 worth of student debt and now has a chance to see that debt wiped out thanks to our advocacy and President Biden’s plan.

It is for the kid in North Minneapolis who suffers from asthma and desperately needs a Congress that will fight against the ravages of pollution and climate change.

It is for the senior in Fridley who was struggling to pay the bills during the pandemic before being helped through investments and direct checks in the American Rescue Plan.

And it is for the thousands upon thousands of people in Minnesota’s Fifth District who feel minimized, sidelined, or silenced by politics as usual.

This seat is for everybody in MN-05, regardless of who they love, how they pray, the color of their skin, or even how they vote, and I will continue to fight for all of you.

I also want to say how incredibly proud of my staff and the campaign we have run to help DFLers up and down the ballot in Minnesota.

Our team has made well over 500,000 outreach attempts over the last 6 months. We've knocked on over 60,000 doors, made over 80,000 phone calls, and with the help of over 1,000 individual volunteers, had over 30,000 conversations with voters across Minnesota’s 5th District through traditional and relational organizing methods.

We have knocked every door around the University of Minnesota and focused heavily on educating and turning out young and working-class people who may not usually vote in a midterm cycle.

We’ve also contributed over $400,000 to the Minnesota DFL to help fund things like GOTV and outreach across the state. Nationally, our leadership PAC has contributed nearly $40,000 to progressive candidates and organizations.

Regardless of the outcomes in other races tonight, I know one thing: We win when we lean into our core values as a party — standing up for working and middle-class Americans and taking on corporate greed.

We win when we call out the radical authoritarian Republican Party’s continued efforts to attack our democracy and concentrate power in the hands of billionaires and the corporate elite.

Let’s lean into — not shy away from — those values. Nothing less than the fate of our democracy depends on it.

In solidarity,

Ilhan Omar

 

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