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      California: officials investigate after second shooting by ICE agents in a week

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      US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were involved in a shooting in southern California on Thursday, prompting a federal investigation.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that ICE officers were conducting a vehicle stop in Ontario when another driver, who was not the target, approached. Officers ordered the driver to leave the area, according to the statement.“As the driver began to pull away, the car stopped and attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping,” Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS’s assistant press secretary, said in a statement.“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots at the vehicle. The subject fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle.”The shooting was the second such incident in the Los Angeles area in recent weeks. Last week, federal agents shot a Los Angeles man who livestreams US immigration enforcement operations on social media.Officials said at the time that Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok creator with a large following, attempted to ram federal agents’ vehicles after agents surrounded him and boxed in his car. Officers shot him in the elbow while a ricochet bullet hit a deputy US marshal in the hand.In Phoenix on Wednesday, an ICE officer shot at a vehicle that officials had tried to stop. The driver began to drive away and officials said the officer was in the vehicle’s path, ABC 15 reported.The shootings come as the Trump administration attempts to significantly expand its deportation operations across the US. The government is reportedly moving to overhaul ICE leadership in order increase the pace of removals.Meanwhile, conditions in ICE facilities are troubling. The Guardian reported this week that US immigration officials are increasingly holding people in small and secretive facilities for days and in some cases weeks, a violation of federal policy. At least 16 people died in ICE facilities between January and September.Deportation operations have upended communities across the US, particularly in southern California, where the fear of raids and removal has left residents on edge and in some cases fearful to leave their homes.The homeland security department said in its statement that Thursday’s shooting “was another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day-in and day-out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals”.“ICE officers now face a 1,000% increase in assaults against them, including cars being used as weapons, and death threats against our agents are up 8,000%,” McLaughlin said. “Let me be clear: anyone who assaults, impedes, obstructs, or threatens the lives of federal officers will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” More

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      US Senate votes to end Trump’s global tariffs on more than 100 countries

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      The US Senate took a stand against Donald Trump’s global tariffs affecting more than 100 countries on Thursday, voting to nullify the so-called “reciprocal” tariffs.Four Republicans joined with all Democrats to vote 51-47 on a resolution to end the base-level tariffs that the president put into place via executive order.It was the third time the Republicans have voted alongside Democrats on a tariff resolution this week, previously rallying to end tariffs targeting Brazil and Canada.Going against Trump is rare for Republicans in his second term. But Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined the opposition party.The vote comes as Trump is wrapping up a week in Asia, where he struck a deal with China to lower tariffs on Chinese goods into the country and get China to buy up US soya beans, a pain point of the trade wars that had farmers on edge, among other concessions.Despite the opposition in the Senate, the House is unlikely to take any similar action. House Republicans created a rule earlier this year that will block resolutions on the tariffs from getting a floor vote.The tariff resolutions are a rebuke to the tariffs themselves and to Trump overstepping his authority and bypassing Congress. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, told reporters that the symbolic opposition should catch the president’s attention.“I did learn in the first Trump term that the president is responsive to things like this. When he sees Republicans starting to vote against his policies, even in small numbers, that makes an impression on him and can often cause him to alter his behavior,” Kaine said. More

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      US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans

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      The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500 – and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans.The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.The administration published the news on Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.No reason was given for the drop in numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000.The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.The government memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.The figure had previously been reported after documents about the plans were leaked.The announcement swiftly drew criticism from refugee organizations, with the International Refugee Assistance Project saying: “This determination makes it painfully clear that the Trump administration values politics over protection.”“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program. It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,” it added.Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of the US-based Global Refuge, took issue with the ethics of the decision.She said: “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing. For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council posted on X.He wrote: “Since the US Refugee Program was created in 1980, it has admitted over two million people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors. Now it will be used as a pathway for white immigration. What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn February, Trump signed an executive order to cut financial aid to South Africa after he accused its Black-led government of “unjust racial discrimination” to white Afrikaners, a minority group who are descendants of Dutch and French colonial settlers.The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the South African government is implementing anti-white policies through a new land expropriation law that allegedly targets Afrikaners’ land.The South African government has pushed back, calling the claims false as well as denying US accusations that Afrikaners are being subjected to racially motivated violence in rural areas.Across South Africa, 72% of farms and agricultural holdings are owned by white individuals, who make up 7.3% of the total population of the country, according to Action for Southern Africa. Meanwhile, Black Africans, who make up 81.4% of the country’s population, only own around 4% of the land.Thursday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has slashed refugee resettlement numbers.During his first term, in 2020, Trump set a limit of 15,000 refugees for the 2021 fiscal year. The previous year, in 2019, he had already reduced the limit to 18,000 for the 2020 fiscal year. More

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      Britain would do well to remember where its power over China lies | Simon Jenkins

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      The US has backed down in its tariff war with China. Thanks to Donald Trump’s egotistical diplomacy, rare earths can again flow one way, soya beans the other, and less of the chemicals used to make fentanyl in between. No matter that the war was Trump’s own idea and seems to have been a stunt. The stunt is over. Trump has played his favourite game of dealmaker, much to the discomfort of millions.Meanwhile Britain still cannot make up its mind if China is its enemy. In 2008 British officials visited the Beijing Olympics authorities to discuss the next games in London in 2012. The government told them to “raise” human rights issues, about which the British government was most concerned. I am told the Chinese reacted with sympathy at the Britons’ embarrassment at broaching the matter, and then everyone got down to business. Soon China was a friend, certainly to David Cameron and George Osborne.Not today. China is now a much-enhanced world power, and in the eyes of some, a threat to Britain’s national security. The recent confusion over whether two British officials were Chinese spies has largely and absurdly revolved around whether the Chinese “threat” was greater to a Tory government than to a Labour one. China was clearly recruiting spies everywhere, as do most countries. It sought a huge London embassy, befriended Prince Andrew and required Boris Johnson to send two aircraft carriers to patrol the South China Sea.Pompous countries crave enemies. They have large military empires heavily reliant on them, empires fiendishly resistant to dismantling. After the fall of the Soviet Union a senior advisor to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev joked to American officials: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”Who is the US’s new enemy? The answer is clearly China. But as Trump has found, it is an enemy with which it is hard to come to terms. It does not send its armies overseas. As it challenges the US for world economic supremacy, it snaps the bond once thought to hold capitalism in the arms of democracy. It gets richer and richer. China’s Brics-plus alliance with India and others has overtaken the G7 in world trade. The Beijing policy expert Henry Wang even mooted this week that a China-led Brics force could police a ceasefire border in Ukraine. It would be a sensational intervention.GK Chesterton wrote that “those who appeal to the head rather than the heart … are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” Trump could yet be that blow to the head. He is forcing Nato to ask itself what it is really about. He is telling the world not to rely on the US to police its conflicts, in the manner trumpeted by Kennedy, Johnson and the two Bush presidents. Washington may be about to turn in on itself and deny its manifest destiny to set the world to rights. After all, it was founded to turn its back on the arguments infesting the outside world.Since Britain, too, enjoyed global fantasies, it of all nations should understand this. It cannot refuse to come to terms with the new Beijing. Yes, China does terrible things to its minorities. It denies freedom of speech and neurotically spies on foreign states. In the new age of artificial intelligence, China is clearly out to rival the US.Since this rivalry will probably encompass attacks on other countries’ cybersecurity, it makes sense for any country to guard its digital space. Whether that extends to embassy buildings is a matter for experts. But clearly, to locate a foreign embassy just five minutes’ walk from a centre of global financial intelligence is a bad idea. China must understand this. Would it let MI6 erect a headquarters overlooking Tiananmen Square?Britain is no longer a superpower and must deal with superpowers, as must all second-division states. But in one respect it is unique. Its soft power is probably equal to none, notably its cultural and teaching assets. It has educated more world leaders – apparently 50 – and takes in more Chinese students than any other country including the US. It also welcomes half a million Chinese tourists a year, many drawn by aspects of British popular culture. We do not measure soft power, but its influence cannot be negligible – and is certainly profitable.It is therefore absurd that the British government is planning to splurge billions more on defending Britain from a purely notional third world war. At the same time it is slashing the budget of its overseas cultural institution, the British Council. The council is being forced to withdraw from 60 countries and sell its entire property portfolio.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe message of current events in China is simple. The world has changed from the one on which Britain has long founded its foreign and defence policy. It needs to reassess the impact its limited power may still have on the world outside. That must include getting on well with China, and not hyping it as an enemy.

      Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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      Senate postpones hearing for Trump’s surgeon general pick after she goes into labor

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      The Senate hearing for Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, has been postponed after the nominee went into labor with her first child.Means had planned to make history as the first nominee to appear virtually before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee due to her pregnancy on Thursday. The hearing was originally scheduled for two days after her due date, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. It remains unclear when the hearing will be rescheduled.In a statement shared with the Guardian, Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the department of health and human services (HHS), said: “Everyone is happy for Dr Means and her family. This is one of the few times in life when it’s easy to ask to move a Senate hearing.”Trump nominated Means in May to serve as US surgeon general, the president’s second pick for the role often referred to as “the nation’s doctor”. Means, a wellness influencer and physician with an inactive medical license, follows the abrupt withdrawal of Trump’s first nominee, Dr Janette Nesheiwat, whose confirmation hearing was canceled amid rightwing criticism and questions about her credentials.Means, 38, is a Los Angeles-based medical entrepreneur who rose to prominence in conservative wellness circles for her critiques of mainstream medicine and her advocacy for improving the nation’s food supply.She is the author of the bestselling book Good Energy and a leading figure in the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement. Her selection underscores the growing influence of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, within the Trump administration.In a social media post, Trump said that Means “has impeccable ‘Maha’ credentials”.“Her academic achievements, together with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding,” Trump said. “Dr Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History.”Asked about the nomination shortly after it was announced, Trump said: “I don’t know her. I listened to the recommendation of Bobby.”Means, through her book, blog and speaking appearances, has championed holistic health with a focus on whole and natural foods, exercise, and curbing pharmaceutical prescriptions for chronic ailments.The Stanford Medicine-trained doctor has also suggested that psychedelics such as psilocybin can be beneficial for mental health, decried broad pesticide use and warned against long-term use of hormonal birth control.Means and her brother, former lobbyist Calley Means, served as key advisers to Kennedy’s long-shot 2024 presidential bid and helped broker his endorsement of Trump last summer. The pair made appearances with some of Trump’s biggest supporters, winning praise from conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and podcaster Joe Rogan.Calley Means is now a White House adviser who appears frequently on television to promote restrictions on Snap benefits, removing fluoride from drinking water and other Maha agenda items. More

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      Share how the ongoing US government shutdown could affect your access to food or health insurance

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      More than 40 million Americans will stop receiving food stamps on 1 November, as the US government shutdown enters its fifth week.The Department of Agriculture says the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) will be suspended until Congress reopens the government. While the Trump administration argues the department does not have the legal authority to use a $5bn contingency fund to continue the aid, Democrats disagree, and two dozen states have sued the government to force the program to continue.Meanwhile, Democrats are also refusing to vote to end the shutdown because health insurance costs are set to go up dramatically as insurers prepare for a lapse in subsidies. Senate Democrats are demanding that any short-term government funding deal include an extension of the enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans, while Trump and the Republicans have said they will not negotiate until the government is back up and running. Extending the subsidies would require $350bn in federal spending over the coming decade.We’d like to hear from Americans who are about to lose Snap food assistance due to the shutdown, as well as from people whose healthcare may become unaffordable due to rising premiums. Have you received any notices or paperwork that your insurance will change soon? Tell us. More

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      The leftwing defense of Graham Platner is rooted in a false Democratic vision | Moira Donegan

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      A young political outsider with a fairly scant record becomes a sensation in a Democratic primary, capturing hearts and minds with a populist message and a disarming charm that translates well into vertical video. His success surges him to the head of the race, and as election day nears, he seems poised to pull off an upset victory that topples one of his district’s most hated and entrenched political machines.It’s a tale of two primaries: the New York City mayoral race, in which the 33-year-old state assembly member Zohran Mamdani defeated the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, and the Maine Senate race, where the political outsider and oyster farmer Graham Platner attracted national attention with a viral campaign.But one of these races has gone much better than the other. In New York, Mamdani has worked to consolidate citywide support following his landslide primary victory, and though he has become a figure of national controversy as Republicans and some Democrats smear him for his race and religion, he has managed to secure broad buy-in from city stakeholders. Mamdani’s opponents, meanwhile, have struggled to create a sense of outrage and scandal around the mayoral contender: despite millions poured into the race from billionaires intent on keeping the Democratic socialist out of office, opposition research into Mamdani seems to be coming up empty. Recently, the New York Post tried, somewhat feebly, to create a scandal out of the fact that Mamdani referred to an older, female relative as his “aunt”, even though technically, she was a distant cousin.Platner’s case looks different. Earlier this month, after Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, entered the Democratic Senate race with the backing of party leaders, a series of increasingly unflattering revelations about Platner’s past behavior came to light. In a series of since-deleted Reddit posts, some from as recently as 2020, Platner made a series of incendiary comments. He claimed that Black people don’t tip (“I work as a bartender and it always amazes me how true the stereotype is,” he wrote. “Every now and again a black patron will leave a 15-20% tip, but usually it [sic] between 0-5%”) and suggested women who have been sexually assaulted were responsible for their own attacks, writing, according to the Washington Post: “If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out f—-d up around people you aren’t comfortable with.” A few days later, he went on Pod Save America, the successful liberal podcast hosted by former Obama staffers, seemingly in an effort to get ahead of another unflattering story: that he had a tattoo of a Totenkopf, widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, for nearly 20 years.Platner’s account of the tattoo goes like this: when he was in his early 20s and enlisted in the marines, he was drunk on shore leave in Croatia, and he and his friends went to get a tattoo. Platner selected a Totenkopf, an angled skull and crossbones image used by the SS; he claims he did not know what it meant, and that he merely thought it looked cool. Platner says that he did not know the significance of his tattoo until recently, and has said he is “not a secret Nazi”.But reporting from outlets such as Jewish Insider and CNN contradicts this, with a source to Jewish Insider claiming that Platner had referred to his tattoo by its German name – as “my Totenkopf” – years before. On Pod Save America, Platner broadcast a video of himself, shirtless and evidently inebriated at his brother’s wedding, with the tattoo on display. As a crowd of partygoers looked on, the half-naked Platner sang an off-key version of Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball. He got the tattoo covered up a few days later, appearing shirtless, again, on television to display an odd-looking Celtic knot with a hound motif where the Totenkopf had once been. One wonders how much familiarity with a Senate candidate’s nipples voters are expected to have.Calls accumulated for Platner to drop out of the race. But some, most prominently the Pod Save America hosts themselves, defended Platner, and suggested that the calls for him to step aside were emblematic of what they see as the Democratic party’s core problems: an excessive priggishness and marriage to political correctness. “Only perfect candidates off the harvard law conveyor belt pls,” wrote Jon Lovett sardonically. “Highly disciplined, all boxes checked, well liked and humble, absolutely no spiritual connection to having a physical body except for severe IBS, volunteered at a soup kitchen in high school, signs email ‘cheers,’ etc.” (Lovett did not elaborate on what “spiritual connection to having a physical body” meant in this context.) Ryan Grim, formerly of the Intercept, cast Platner’s rehabilitation in existential terms for the party: “Not to overstate it, but this is a crucial moment for the Democratic Party,” he wrote. “If they decide that normal people with some skeletons in their closet (or inked on their chest) are not welcome, they are finished.” Normal seems to be a flexible term. Ben Burgiss, an adjunct at Rutgers and a columnist at the left-populist magazine Jacobin, put it more bluntly: “I still like Platner a whole lot more than the grim little hall monitors digging up dirt on him,” he wrote on the day that the Totenkopf tattoo story broke. “Sorry.”For his part, Platner was defensive about the need for actions like his to find tolerance and forgiveness in a party that seeks to court male voters. “How do you expect to win young people?” Platner said in an interview with Semafor. “How do you expect to win back men when you go back through somebody’s Reddit history and just pull it all out and say: ‘Oh my God, this person has no right to ever be in politics?’ Good luck with that. Good luck winning over those demographics.”Mamdani and Platner are clearly men of different temperaments. But the men also represent different paths for the Democratic party’s insurgent left wing, as left-populist candidates ride a wave of voter outrage and base anger at Democratic party leadership to pose serious challenges to the party’s mainstream. In Mamdani, what seems to be a genuine political talent has emerged: his uncommonly disciplined message focuses on affordability issues without shying away from pluralist values or seeming to mimic a more rugged, domineering form of masculinity. But in Platner, some pundits and members of the consultant class seem to have found a vehicle for their own project for the party’s reform, one that is less about policy outcomes than about transforming the Democratic party’s image to embrace men, masculinity and a vision of a rugged, rural whiteness.The notion that the Democratic party is losing because it is too feminized – too dominated by women among its voters, leaders and candidates, or not sufficiently comfortable with the style of masculinity represented by Platner – has been bubbling up among left and liberal commentators with increasing insistence over the past decade. The idea is that in catering too much to women, and in being insufficiently deferential to domineering, gruff, physically imposing and implicitly white, rural men, the party has come to seem hectoring, inauthentic and whiny, and lost the voters they need to most recruit: that is, the working class, imagined here, as they so frequently are, as brusque, bigoted, ignorant, vulgar and male.Put aside, for a moment, the misogyny of this assertion: is it true that by becoming too “feminine”, the party will lose the working class? The reality is that the American working class now consists less of the masculine-coded heavy industries like manufacturing and rust-belt steel mills, and more of jobs in the female-dominated service sector. Just under half of American workers are women, but they are the majority of the low-wage workforce. The conflation of the “working class” with maleness is outdated and false, a rhetorical fig leaf that conceals sexism behind a facade of anticapitalist righteousness.One suspects that what is at stake in the pundit defenses of Platner and his masculinity is not so much about electoral outcomes as it is about an idea of what makes power legitimate. When the likes of Lovett, Grim and Burgiss suggest that tolerance for behavior like Platner’s is needed to win elections – an idea that seems to have very little esteem for men and workers, both – they might actually be signaling not so much what they need to do to win, but what kind of victory would be worth having.The infatuation with an idea of a working class that is not represented in the actual numbers is less about a materialist analysis of American politics than it is about a psychic investment in American manhood. The tolerance these pundits are calling for is not an electoral necessity, but a cultural valuation of a certain kind of American over others. It is unfortunate, in the light of Mamdani’s example of how capacious masculinity can be and how needless tolerance for racism and sexism are to an energizing campaign, that these men are choosing to line up behind a man who has displayed, at minimum, some highly questionable judgment.But to many, the Totenkopf-bearing man, shirtless and belting in the video that Platner showed on Pod Save America, is simply more American than others – more authentic, more admirable, more worthy of winning over. Women of color, Jews, rape survivors, Black people, or any of the others that Platner might alienate with this past behavior, meanwhile, seem relatively cheap to them in comparison. This chase for the white male vote as more worthy and important is conspicuous, now, among the liberal pundit class. How are all the other voters supposed to feel about it?

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      The ‘Mamdani of Minneapolis’ is banking on a grassroots campaign to unseat the Democratic mayor

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      On a rainy October day, dozens of volunteers showed up at a Minneapolis park to grab campaign literature they would leave at voters’ doors, hoping to buoy up a Democratic socialist into the mayor’s office.A handful of door-knockers ran into an apartment building to escape the rain, joining Omar Fateh, the mayoral hopeful sometimes dubbed the “Mamdani of Minneapolis”.“We’re running on a campaign to make the city more livable, affordable and to protect all of our residents,” he told one voter, who said they hadn’t been following the race closely.Two others who answered knew Fateh’s name and lent their support. “I think I’m planning on voting for you,” one man told Fateh.Minneapolis voters will decide their next mayor on Tuesday 4 November.Fateh, a 35-year-old who became state senator by ousting an incumbent, has gained attention for comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist on track to win New York City’s mayoral contest. They’re both young, both part of the insurgent left, both Muslim, both state lawmakers. Their platforms, with a focus on affordability, align. Their campaigns tap into grassroots organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Their races use ranked-choice voting, allowing for alliances against the incumbent.Instead of a primary, Minneapolis holds caucuses and a city convention. Fateh earned the endorsement of the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, but it was then revoked by the state party after the electronic voting system failed to capture all votes in the contest, the Minneapolis DFL acknowledged, leaving the race without an endorsed candidate.View image in fullscreen“One of the biggest benefits of the DFL endorsement is name recognition,” Fateh told the Guardian. “But that name recognition became far greater than what we ever could have gotten with the endorsement after they revoked it.”The Minneapolis mayor’s race doesn’t feature the shamelessness of the New York City race – namely, the participation of the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and the ethically suspect incumbent mayor, Eric Adams. Few have the charisma of Mamdani, nor the organizing and social media prowess of his campaign, one that left-leaning candidates around the country will try to emulate.Minneapolis’s incumbent mayor, Jacob Frey, running for his third term, has his critics – for his handling of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in the city in 2020, persistent policing problems, a homelessness crisis and contentions with the more progressive city council. Frey, 44, often serves as a moderate check on the council, which includes several Democratic socialists.There are 15 candidates running in the race, four of whom – all Democrats – are considered viable. The three top challengers, including Fateh, have created an alliance, appearing at each other’s events, though only Fateh is explicitly telling voters not to rank Frey on their ballots. Public polling of the race is minimal, complicated by the ranked-choice voting method, though Frey typically shows as the top vote-getter, albeit not cresting the necessary 50% to win in a first ballot.“The fact that Fateh and other candidates are drawing as much support as they appear to be, I think, owes to the fact that the Democratic party has lost credibility among progressive voters,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “This is not a cross-section of America. This is an urban area in one of the most progressive kind of electorates in the country.”The rise of Omar FatehFateh, like Mamdani, is running a campaign full of progressive promises, including raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, a plan for rent stabilization, a public safety system that funds alternatives to police for calls like mental health crises and standing up to Trump. Six of the 13 council members have backed him, as have unions and state lawmakers.He casts Frey’s two terms as “broken promises and vetoes”, noting a 2017 campaign promise to end homelessness within five years and goals for public safety reform after Floyd’s murder.“We have a progressive city council that’s ready to do the work, that has been doing the work,” Fateh told the Guardian. “We just don’t have a mayor as a partner.”Fateh, born in Washington DC, moved to Minneapolis about a decade ago. In 2020, the Democratic socialist launched a challenge to an incumbent Democrat for the state senate, earning the party’s endorsement and eventually becoming the first Somali American and first Muslim in the chamber. As a senator, he pushed through a bill creating labor standards for ride-share drivers and championed a tuition-free college plan.His time in the legislature and reputation as a progressive fighter gave him a base of support in the mayoral contest, elevating him to top contender against Frey, Jacobs said.An increased national profile has brought along an increase in threats, racism and Islamophobia, Fateh told Sahan Journal, a local publication, this week. Earlier this month, he got a message that said: “Two bullets to the head, done.” He has had to take additional safety precautions and pay for security, he told the outlet. “Most campaigns don’t have to think about this,” his campaign manager told Sahan Journal.View image in fullscreenFateh believes the revoked endorsement is in part because of the donor class and how it would look to support a progressive candidate with a populist message, especially in suburban and rural areas where the DFL has lost ground.“The DFL and the Democratic party as a whole like to always say we’re a big tent, we are a wide spectrum, we welcome everybody,” he said. “But a lot of times it seems like when it’s the more progressive wing that they can shut out.”After knocking on doors, Fateh returned to the park, where families set up bubble machines and boxes of fruit snacks and goldfish for a “play date with Omar Fateh”, himself the tired first-time father of a newborn. He is quick to show off pictures of his baby. Frey also has a newborn, his second child – the two politicians’ babies were born within 10 days of each other.An organizer at the play date asked the crowd of a few dozen adults and kids if anyone knows who Fateh is. “I’ve seen him on the phone!” one kid yelled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSarah Quinn, a Minneapolis voter who spoke to the crowd at the event, said she had heard from people who were ready to vote against Frey, but weren’t sure how they would rank the other candidates. People seemed excited to hear about Fateh’s vision, she said, and she was sick of hearing about vetoes of council bills and “low-grade insults back and forth” among the mayor and council.“I feel like Minneapolis has this reputation of being a really progressive city, and I’m not actually feeling that as a resident,” Quinn said. “And so just hearing his agenda has really resonated with me, and I think that he’s somebody that can actually get the shit done with the city council.”The rise of the DSA has served as a boogeyman of sorts for the Democratic establishment: before the Minneapolis convention, one proposal, which was later pulled back, sought to make it so a candidate couldn’t be endorsed by both the DSA and the DFL.Fateh’s campaign has been boosted by the Twin Cities DSA. Brooke Bartholomew, the group’s co-chair, said they had seen new members sign up after Mamdani’s win in the primary.“We have the people power,” Bartholomew said. “That’s part of what DSA brings to the table for Omar Fateh’s campaign is people power – going on those doors, talking to neighbors and helping to build this really diverse coalition.”Is Frey vulnerable?Frey, endorsed by Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, has the money advantage over Fateh and the other two top contenders, Jazz Hampton and DeWayne Davis. That “organizational muscle” that comes from allied groups and the business community could help get out the vote for Frey, said Jacobs, of the University of Minnesota.The Guardian repeatedly sought an interview with Frey and asked to attend a campaign event. The campaign did not make the mayor available, instead sending a statement from a campaign spokesperson.View image in fullscreen“Over the last five years, Minneapolis was tested like never before,” the statement said. “Under Mayor Frey’s leadership, the city has been making a comeback. Violent crime is trending down, the city is creating eight times more deeply affordable housing than before Mayor Frey took office, and Minneapolis is taking the Trump administration to court to defend our neighbors. The mayor is running for one final term to improve public safety by hiring more police officers and implementing police reform, expanding affordable housing, and focusing on delivering excellent core city services. We’re optimistic that Minneapolis voters will support that vision next week.”Since Trump returned to the White House, Frey has vocally defended Minneapolis, which could become a target of Trump’s increased deportation raids or military occupations. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, came to town in late October, stoking speculation that the city could be next on Trump’s list. Frey, flanked by city leaders, put out a video on the day of her visit saying he had been preparing for months for a potential federal influx.“In Minneapolis, we have your back,” Frey said to the city’s immigrant communities. “You will be protected and respected by our city employees regardless of your immigration status.”Opposing Trump is an increasing part of the mayor’s purview, and one that all the contenders say is critical. Fateh wants the city to strengthen the separation ordinance that prevents city employees from aiding immigration activities.While the race is often cast as a two-person contest, Hampton and Davis see lanes for themselves to win, given ranked-choice voting, and not just to help Fateh.View image in fullscreen“I would not be running to prop up someone else’s campaign,” Hampton said. “I’m running to win, and I believe that we can and will. However, if that means door-knocking with other candidates to let everyone see us, that’s what we should be doing.”Davis, a minister and former congressional staffer, said voters were ready to move beyond “leadership by press conference and ribbon-cutting”, and the success of the three insurgent campaigns shows that.The Mamdani comparisons don’t track as much with the Minneapolis race, Davis said. Looking past the weak opposition from Cuomo in New York, Minneapolis has a “very active establishment” of business-oriented Democrats.“I think we are far more divided here,” Davis said of Minneapolis voters. “And so given the ranked choice with us, that division, it’s any guess about how that iteration of choices through ranked choice will end up happening.” More