Jacob Frey fends off the Democratic Socialist’s challenge to win a third term as mayor of Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey defeated Democratic Socialist Omar Fatah and 13 other challengers Wednesday during the final round of counting in the city’s ranked-choice voting election.

Frey, who is seeking a third term, led Fatah by about 10 percentage points after the first round of vote counting on Tuesday night, but fell short of the 50% plus one vote threshold he would have needed to win outright.

The way by-choice voting works in Minneapolis, if no candidate passes the threshold in the first round, the candidates with the fewest votes in the next round are eliminated from the count, while the second and third choice rankings are assigned to the surviving candidates. The process is repeated until one candidate has enough. Fry won after the second round in 2021.

Frey, a mainstream Democrat, and Fatah, a Democratic state senator who is a democratic socialist, led a field of 15 candidates. The only other candidates who received significant votes were Pastor Dewayne Davis and businessman Jaz Hampton, who were close behind.

Fatah, Davis, and Hampton formed a coalition, urging their electors to rank among themselves, but not Frye, to make it more difficult for the incumbent to win.

Frey led Minneapolis through the unrest following the 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white officer used his knee to pin his neck to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes. But his administration later negotiated agreements with state and federal governments to remake a police department that lost hundreds of officers after Floyd’s death.

Fatah had hoped to become the first Muslim and first Somali-American mayor of the city, which has the largest Somali population in the United States. Fath has drawn comparisons with Zahran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday, because of their backgrounds and ideological similarities. They both come from immigrant families, although Fatah was born in the United States

Minneapolis set a record for the largest number of votes cast in a municipal election, with more than 147,000 residents voting, election officials said. They said 55% of registered voters cast ballots, a slight increase from the previous record of 54% in 2021. The City Council is scheduled to certify the final results and announce them official on Monday.

In neighboring St. Paul, Democratic Rep. Kaohli Herr defeated incumbent Democratic Mayor Melvin Carter early Wednesday after trailing slightly in the first round of counting there. She will become the first woman and first Hmong American mayor of the state capital, which has the largest Hmong population in the United States.

She will work with an all-female city council.