 So I wanted to take some time to talk about Tuesday's primary in the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota featuring Ilhan Omar and an APAC-funded corporate Democrat who she ultimately defeated. Now following her victory, she released this statement via Twitter saying tonight's victory is a testament to how much our district believes in the collective values we are fighting for and how much they're willing to do to help us overcome defeat. Now Ilhan Omar probably is the member of Congress why I agree with the most. We don't agree on 100% of the issues but ideologically speaking I'm probably the most closely aligned with her and on top of that I also have some slight strategic disagreements with her from time to time. Having said that though, Ilhan Omar is an absolutely invaluable member for progressives in Congress and to lose her would be a disaster. But why talk about this doomsday scenario if it didn't actually bear out if she won? Well let's look at the results here. She won by just 2 percentage points with 50.3% of the vote while her opponent Don Samuels got 48.2% of the vote. So I want to make this very clear. We came this close to losing Ilhan Omar. We already lost Marie Newman this year in Congress. This was a progressive who was successfully primaried by a centrist corporate Democrat and we almost lost one of the most vocal progressive members of Congress. That would have been an absolute nightmare and to show you how close this was let's look back at some primaries that took place just last Tuesday. So Rashida Tlaib defeated her primary opponent by over 41 points. Corey Bush defeated her primary opponent by nearly 43 percentage points and back in June Katie Porter defeated her primary opponent by almost 21 percentage points. But Ilhan Omar 2 points. Now the good news is she won. But I want this to be a wake up call to the left. We have to be there to defend our allies in Congress. I know that oftentimes we criticize them a lot of us are vocal and for good reason. You know we become complicit because she has that incumbency advantage which is a real thing by the way. This really goes to show you that in the next primary that Ilhan Omar is going to face which is inevitable she will be primaried and that's fine. I think that primaries are a part of democracy and I support them unequivocally. But I also support defending my people and who are going to fight for policies that affect me and we have to be there for Ilhan Omar next time. We have to be there for all progressives when it comes to their primaries because we don't necessarily know how close it's going to come and whether or not us being complicit could be our downfall ultimately. It's not just about Minnesota's fifth congressional district. Ilhan Omar supports supports policies that affect all of us in a positive way. She sponsored legislation in the House to cancel all student debt. And on top of that she's a consistent vote for progressives. Now again, you may disagree with her from time to time as I do with particular votes that she takes that doesn't mean that we allow her to lose to some corporate Democrat who's going to do the bidding of the establishment and especially their corporate donors. So why was this race so close? It's not like there weren't other issues regarding funding and apex backing of a primary opponent. But in this particular race there was a lot of people who were against Ilhan Omar. So Jake Johnson of Common Dreams lays out the dynamic of this race. Omar, who has also repeatedly been thrown under a bus by the Democratic establishment, overcame a torrent of outside opposition spending, including from a newly created super PAC financed with donations from Kelly Doran, a Minnesota businessman and commercial real estate developer with a history of donating to Republicans and Vance Opperman, the head of a private investment firm. The drain, the DC swamp pack, a far right outfit aligned with former President Donald Trump and GOP election deniers also spent against Omar in the primary for Minnesota's solidly blue fifth congressional district. The Intercept reported last year that Samuels, who was also previously elected to the Minneapolis School Board with the support of right wing privatization advocates attended an April fundraiser headlined by developers, lobbyists and business leaders, including at least one Republican operative and donor, Andy Brim, Jonathan Winehagen, the president and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, Steve Kramer, the president and CEO of MPLS downtown council, an organization of more than 450 Minneapolis businesses, a former US ambassador to Morocco and a former city council president. So it's not just a PAC money and pro Israel, anti Palestinian money going into this race. It's a lot of right wing money. Now, as we've seen in the past, right wing donations are very powerful because their pockets are seemingly infinite. We saw the way that right wing money defeated Nina Turner not once, but twice. We saw what right wing money did in Buffalo, where India Walton defeated the incumbent mayor, Byron Brown in their Democratic Party primary, but he decided to run a sore loser right in campaign. He took lots and lots of right wing money and he ultimately won the general election, even after she beat him in the primary. So if we've learned anything, it's that when we see right wing money in a race, we have to take it seriously. And we just weren't really following this race closely, because again, it's really easy to become complicit. I'm part of the problem for sure. You know, I expected Ilhan Omar to win. And when I saw that, you know, it was called for her, I wasn't surprised. But when I looked at the numbers, I thought, wait a second. This really is cause for concern. Again, we have two more years of Ilhan Omar in Congress, but we have to make sure that her legacy extends beyond 2022, 2024, 2026, because so long as she's going to be a fighter, so long as we have members of Congress actually representing the left in a meaningful way, we have to have their backs and it's difficult because we're trying to multitask, right? On one hand, you know, I always hyper focus on getting new progressives elected into Congress. But I think that this year really serves as a wake up call that we can't just focus exclusively on making more gains. We have to protect the gains that we've made. And I'm preaching to the choir. I know that all of you know this, but I think it really serves as a reminder and more importantly, a wake up call as to how powerful these interests are. They're not just going to give up once they see that a leftist defeated some corporate Democrat in a primary. They're going to get involved in these primaries as Democrats have been getting involved in GOP primaries to make sure that they defeat someone who they view as a threat to their corporate interests or their geopolitical interests or whatever. They've had it out for Ilhan Omar and she has gone through more than any Congressperson has gone through. I mean, she faces death threats repeatedly and on a constant basis. So we've got to do more to protect our allies in Congress. And I just wanted to let you know how close this was in case you weren't following this race as closely because this is scary. Again, this close, we came this close. And we've got to be there for our representatives who actually represent our movement. Well, they may not be perfect allies. You're never going to agree with a member of Congress on 100 percent of the issues. I think that if you're a leftist and you believe strongly, if you have a really consistent ideology, that's impossible. But still, we have to support people who are aligned with us, especially people like Ilhan Omar, who goes to bat for the left, who says things that 20 years ago really was unheard of in Congress. How often can you look back in history and see members of Congress denouncing Israeli apartheid and using the word apartheid? I mean, only until recently when we've elected members of the squad like AOC, Rashida Tlaibayana Presley, have we seen momentum shift, you know, to the left, at least somewhat within the Democratic Party. It's not like they are running roughshod over corporate Democrats. I think that the opposite is true. But just to have them there to shift the overton window to be an extra voice for the left, that really is important. And I hope that the online left, the institutional left, all coalesce behind these primaries because the challenges aren't going to stop. And they shouldn't they shouldn't stop to be fair. I think that every single sitting member of Congress should face a primary challenge every single year because I'm principled and I believe in democracy, but we've still got to defend our people in these fights. So just pay close attention next time, folks. This was really close, too close for comfort. And I'm going to be hyper aware next time what money is going into these primary races.