Democrats lost support with Somali Minnesota voters in 2024 presidential election

Once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Somali Americans increasingly turned away from the party in last week’s presidential election.

Support for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, who won Minnesota but much more narrowly than President Joe Biden did in 2020, dropped in three Minneapolis precincts with large East African populations. While Harris won each precinct, she did so by far thinner margins than Biden.

In the Somali American hub of Cedar-Riverside, support for Harris dropped 14 percentage points. Votes for Harris also dropped in precincts in the Seward neighborhood and along W. Lake Street by 9 and 12 percentage points, respectively.

Opposition to the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza War roiled Somali and Muslim Americans across the country, one of the factors contributing to why Harris lost traditionally Democratic support nationwide. In Minnesota, local activists passed out fliers in mosques and Somali malls in the weeks leading up to the election advocating that people abandon Harris and vote third-party for what they described as the White House’s enabling of genocide in the Middle East.

Interviews with voters and community leaders also point to other factors: a belief that the economy was much better under Trump, an interest in preserving socially conservative cultural values, and frustration that Democrats take their votes for granted while failing to address their concerns.

“We used to be bloc voters, where we just voted for whoever Democrats bring along,” said Abdul Yusuf, a Minneapolis consultant who is involved in a movement advocating for parental rights regarding the information children receive on gender issues in public schools. “That time is gone.”

In a national exit poll, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a major Muslim advocacy organization, found Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 53% of the Muslim vote, Trump secured 21% and Harris received 20%. Some believe that Harris lost the battleground state of Michigan due to opposition from Muslim voters over Gaza; Trump won the heavily Arab American city of Dearborn and secured the endorsement of several Muslim leaders in the state.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, worked to defeat Harris in battleground states as a leader of the Abandon Harris movement. He said he heard from Muslim leaders in those states that surrogates for Trump “went above and beyond” to reach out to them. Hussein said they didn’t always have comfortable conversations, as community leaders questioned why Trump had previously demonized Muslims, but “today there are a lot more Muslims who are feeling a lot better that Trump is in.”

Meanwhile, he said he believes the issue of Gaza hurt Democrats in ways they continue to ignore. That includes in Minnesota, where Hussein said the Democratic ticket’s margin should not have been as close — especially given that Harris’ running mate was Gov. Tim Walz. Harris won the state by 4%; Biden triumphed by almost twice that margin.

Still, Stein failed to make much headway in Minnesota despite Abandon Harris’ endorsement. The Green Party antiwar candidate garnered just 0.5 % support in Minnesota, or 16,271 votes — less than half of what she did in 2016. Hussein acknowledged that there wasn’t a lot of energy for Stein and that the Green Party lacked a significant ground game; he thinks there were also more people who didn’t vote at all and met many young people who felt disengaged.

Hussein believes that local Democrats’ efforts later in the campaign to push for Harris in the community backfired — as did the candidate’s decision to rally with Republican Liz Cheney. Trump repeatedly assailed her and her father Dick Cheney as warmongers, and “attacking his own party, the Republicans, during the Iraq War, and what they did … it was a talking point that resonated significantly with the American Muslim population,” said Hussein.

He added: “If the Democrats wanted to lose and really egg off the Muslims, they did every single thing and plus they got even extra credit for Liz Cheney. They made it almost impossible for all the Democratic surrogates who were trying to do anything to salvage anything.”

Trump won 12% of the vote in deep-blue Minneapolis, but his support was above that in heavily East African precincts in Ward 6, ranging up to 25.7%. In the precinct that includes the Riverside Towers, Trump received 18% of the vote (Stein secured 4%). The Wall Street Journal also found in an exit poll that 20% of Black voters in Minnesota backed Trump, though it’s unknown how many were of Somali descent.

Not all voting precincts can be compared between 2020 and 2024. The voting precincts the Star Tribune compared retained the same geography between both elections.

“I voted for the economy,” said Yousuf Mohamed, a truck driver in Ward 6 who voted for Trump. Business, the father of four explained, is not good and he believes it will improve under the Republican.

Ward 6 Council Member Jamal Osman, a DFLer, has heard similar stories from a lot of East African truck drivers who say they had much more business during the Trump administration and now can’t provide for their families, as work has slowed. He also says people are upset about Gaza and feel like the Democrats take them for granted even though they have been “super voters for this party.”

“They’re not showing their support [for Trump] in my opinion — they’re just frustrated about the administration that was in power, Joe Biden, and some of their concerns not being addressed,” Osman said. “People understand that Trump was not the answer, but it was more about a protest and showing they were dissatisfied with where the country was heading.”

Now, the council member said people in his community have a lot of fear that Trump will be deporting and denaturalizing them. (Because they originally came as refugees, Somali residents have legal immigration status and a pathway to citizenship.) Osman also thinks recent results were only a reflection of how Somali Americans feel about Democrats nationally. Locally, he said, Republicans don’t have anything to offer and the state DFL “has done so many good things for our people.”

Yusuf has seen more Somali Americans shift away from Democrats in the last few years over family and cultural values, such as wanting parents to have control over the information their children receive about LGBT and gender issues in public schools at young ages. Opposition to Gaza, he believes, was just another layer.

“The freedom of raising our kids the way nature intends and the way that is culturally appropriate was one of the most important things … Somalis are very, very strict on family values,” said Yusuf, who helped start a group called Minnesota Community Vanguard that advocates for parental rights. He said Somalis in the group are working with people of other religions and cultural backgrounds who are aligned on those issues.

While Yusuf believes the Democratic party has moved too far to the left, “it’s not Democrat versus Republican – it’s more about who the candidate is.”

The weekend before the election, a group of Somali Americans gathered at the Minnesota State Capitol to endorse Trump. Nearly 20 stood alongside a sign advocating their political priorities: public safety, school choice, the fentanyl crisis, the economy and peace.

Tayler Rahm, Trump’s senior adviser in Minnesota, told the crowd it was an honor to have the endorsement. While Trump has previously disparaged aspects of Somali resettlement, Rahm said in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, “President Trump will continue to support all legal immigrants.”

At the podium, Salman Fiqy said Somali Americans’ values align with those of the GOP.

“I’ve been campaigning with many Republican candidates, and then we do door-knocking and reaching out to the communities,” said Fiqy, a Burnsville business owner who recently ran in a Republican primary for state representative. “And once we reach out to the Somali community, the candidates will be surprised to see the welcoming.”

Jake Steinberg, a graphics producer at the Minnesota Star Tribune focusing on cartography and visual storytelling, contributed to this story.