Threatening language scrawled on Minnesota state Sen. Omar Fateh's campaign office

Deena Winter, Star Tribune on Sep 25, 2025

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MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis mayoral candidate state Sen. Omar Fateh’s campaign office has been vandalized with threatening, seemingly Islamophobic language.

“Somali Muslim — This warning is no joke,” reads a message written on a window of the campaign office, according to a photograph supplied by the campaign, which reported the matter to police Wednesday and announced it late Wednesday night.

Fateh was born in America to Somali immigrants and is Muslim.

He is challenging Mayor Jacob Frey in the Nov. 4 election.

The democratic socialist was endorsed by Minneapolis Democrats in July, before the state party revoked the endorsement due to computer glitches at the convention.

Fateh’s short-lived endorsement raised his profile nationally, and brought more hate along with it, according to his campaign manager, Akhilesh Menawat.

He said Fateh has been the target of right-wing attacks from conservative media outlets and figureheads, with a “steady stream of hate, racial, and Islamophobic slurs, and violent threats” to his campaign email, Senate email and on social media.

“The right-wing attacks on Omar and Muslims have definitely fed into an increase in threatening emails and social media posts,” Menawat told the Star Tribune.

“Our campaign will not be deterred by hate speech and vandalism,” Fateh said in a statement.

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