Omar represents a D+32 district.
The Guardian‘s Moira Donegan writes that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s search of the Washington home of Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar “was meant to cast an air of suspicion and criminality over the Democratic candidates who, like Omar, are facing the voters in a matter of weeks.”
Let me put Donegan’s mind at ease. Omar represents Minnesota’s fifth congressional district, covering Minneapolis, which scores a D+32 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Omar was reelected with more than 74 percent of the vote in the 2024 general election. Two years before that, she won with 74 percent of the vote. Two years before that, she won with 64 percent of the vote in a three-way race. Two years before that, she won with 78 percent of the vote.
I don’t know what percentage of the vote Omar will garner this November, but I feel exceedingly confident that it will be the highest. (Omar’s Republican opponent, John Nagel, might be a swell guy, but as of the end of July, he had raised one-seventh of her campaign war chest.) Maybe the news of the investigation knocks a few percentage points off Omar’s total, but I doubt it will have even that effect. There just aren’t that many people in this district who aren’t inclined to vote for the Democrat, no matter what stories are in the news. Two years ago, Kamala Harris won in this district 79 percent to 18 percent.
Usually it’s some optimistic Republican who contends that the latest scandal is going to lead to Omar’s electoral defeat. Now a progressive columnist is doing the same. Every time I hear that, I roll my eyes and sigh, “Oh, brother.”
To paraphrase the president, Omar could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and she wouldn’t lose many voters. (Okay, maybe a few ardent gun control advocates would stop supporting her.)
The administration may well have had some sort of improper motive for the search, but whatever evidence it had was apparently sufficient to persuade a federal judge. We will see if the results of the search lead to an indictment. But the notion that this is all part of some plot to derail Omar’s reelection bid in November doesn’t make much sense.