Ilhan Omar fends off challengers to win primary after AIPAC stays out of the race

Rep. Ilhan Omar , the final member of the progressive Squad to face a primary this cycle, fended off her primary opponents in her Minneapolis-based 5th District on Tuesday.

Omar prevailed over Don Samuels, a former member of the Minneapolis City Council who had come just 2 points shy of unseating her in the midterms, along with two little-known competitors. Her win comes just a week after fellow Squad member Missouri Rep. Cori Bush lost her primary in an election that drew millions of dollars in spending from pro-Israel groups.

Omar’s race didn’t see that type of spending, and she faced less opposition than in the past.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most prominent pro-Israel group, stayed out of her race this cycle despite looking to unseat candidates it deemed as not sufficiently pro-Israel — and despite United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, spending six figures against Omar in 2022. Omar, a refugee of the civil war in Somalia, was one of the first two Muslim women in Congress, and she has been an outspoken critic of Israel. While AIPAC didn’t make a public play for her this time, she still issued warnings about — and fundraised off of — its potential influence in her race.

Omar proved to be a dominant fundraiser this cycle, with the millions of dollars she raked in ahead of the primary dwarfing Samuels’ haul. (Samuels did see a fundraising bump after AIPAC-backed Wesley Bell ousted Bush last week.) Outside spending from pro-Israel groups could have given Samuels a boost, and he has complained about the lack of intervention on his behalf. Samuels said in an interview with POLITICO that “mentally, we felt vulnerable” without outside support.

But AIPAC has been strategic about which races it’s investing in, including retreating from trying to oust some candidates that it targeted in the past. Both Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), the other Squad member the group spent heavily against, had other vulnerabilities that would have made their reelection bids difficult even if there hadn’t been a flood of money against them. Meanwhile, the group skipped over getting involved in Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee ’s primary earlier this year , which she handily won .

So why not go after Omar this time, especially after Samuels nearly unseated her last time? Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which endorsed her, pointed to her establishment backing and the makeup of the district, which is home to progressive Minneapolis. Martin also argued that “no amount of money” was going to help Samuels.

“Several cycles ago when she first ran, you wouldn’t have found a lot our of elected officials probably supporting her, but they support her now because she's been much more effective in building coalitions,” Martin said of Omar.

Just one Squad member , Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley , hasn’t had a primary yet. But she’s running uncontested in both the primary and the general, meaning she’ll cruise to reelection in the fall. And other members of the Squad also came out unscathed because they didn’t face primary challenges, either.

Still, in the aftermath of Bowman and Bush’s high-profile losses, some progressives have expressed concerns about the infrastructure of the progressive movement and whether they can fight back against the influx of dollars in coming cycles.

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.