The Minneapolis mayor race has proceeded to a second round of vote tabulation in ranked-choice voting.

While Mayor Jacob Frey took the lead with 41.8% of the vote (with 98% of the votes counted, according to the Associated Press), he did not cross the threshold of 50% plus one vote, meaning the race moves to the second round of tabulation. State Senator Omar Fateh, the challenger most likely to unseat Frey, received 31.7% of the vote, while Rev. Dr. DeWayne Davis received 13.7%. All other candidates received only 12.8%.

In ranked-choice voting, voters select candidates for their first, second, and third choices. If, as happened here, no one candidate clears the threshold to win outright when the first choices have been tabulated, election officials determine which candidates cannot mathematically win. Voters who selected a losing candidate as their first choice will have their second choice counted, and the process continues until one candidate clears the threshold.

Mayor Frey, a Reform Jew who is running for his third term, ran as a more pro-police candidate, insisting that Minneapolis needs more police even while he celebrated his program to build out non-police “violence interruptors” in the city.

Fateh, a Somali Muslim and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, previously supported a measure to replace the city’s police force, but has since said he would rather supplement officers with non-police responders.

While Minnesota’s version of the Democratic Party—the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party—shares near parity with the Republican Party statewide, the DFL and Democratic Socialists of America dominate most Minneapolis politics. A DFL convention endorsed Fateh, but the party later rescinded the endorsement.

Shane Mekeland, a Republican in the Minnesota House of Representatives, told The Daily Signal that Fateh is “dangerous.” He recalled a situation where Fateh refused to show up for a house vote, tying up the chamber for 13 hours, until legislators agreed to include his bill in an omnibus spending bill. Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., vetoed the bill when it passed independently, but he could not line-item veto an omnibus spending bill.

Mekeland noted that Walz recently campaigned with Frey.

“There is no love lost between those two,” the Republican said, referring to Fateh and Walz.

Mekeland also suggested Fateh’s support from the Somali community in Minneapolis may win him the governor’s mansion. He cited a Project Veritas video from 2020 in which a Somali man alleged widespread fraud in Minnesota, aiming at supporting Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Omar emphatically rejected the claims, saying they were not true. Researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington claimed in an interview with The New York Times that the video was part of a disinformation effort. The original Project Veritas source later backtracked. The Daily Signal has reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department, which reportedly opened an investigation.

“There’s a lot riding on this” election, Mekeland told The Daily Signal. “Minneapolis will be gone. It will be over.”

Full election results are expected later this week.

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