The photo from top left Abdi Daisane a newcomer, to Munira Abdullahi, Ismail Mohamed, and Zaynab Mohamed who retained their seats in both Minnesota and Ohio.
By Amanda Richer for Runta News-Seattle, Washington
From Fear to Hope: The Night America’s Leaders Started to Look Like America
Ilhan Omar is going back to Congress. Last Tuesday, the Somali refugee who became the first Somali American ever elected to Congress won a fifth term in Minnesota. She won after years of being singled out from the highest office in the land, after being told to go back to Somalia, and in the middle of a federal investigation. Her district answered loudly.
Voters across this country did something many of us had been afraid to hope for, and for Somali Americans, the night belonged to us. In St. Cloud, where Somali families have too often been met with hostility, Abdi Daisane made history as the area’s first Somali American state lawmaker. A small business owner who came here more than 15 years ago, he lost this same race in 2024. This time he came back and flipped a Republican seat.
In the Twin Cities, State Reps. Mohamud Noor of Minneapolis and Samakab Hussein of St. Paul return to the Capitol, both unopposed. Somali-born State Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, who came here at age nine, was re-elected in south Minneapolis with nearly 88 percent of the vote. In Columbus, Ohio, State Reps. Ismail Mohamed and Munira Abdullahi, the first Somali Americans ever to serve in that state’s legislature, both won new terms by wide margins.
Our East African neighbors rose with us. Ethiopian-born Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old former barista whose family came through the diversity visa lottery, becomes the first Black woman Colorado has ever sent to Congress.
Across the country, the walls kept falling. Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia became the first Black woman ever elected governor, and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, an Egyptian American, becomes the first Muslim U.S. senator.
Here in Seattle, the 37th District is on track to elect Jaelynn Scott, the first Black openly transgender state lawmaker in the country. For two years, so many of our families have lived with fear: raids, threats to citizenship, being told again and again that we do not belong. Last night did not erase that. But it answered it. Voters said: you belong, and you can lead.
Representation is not the finish line. These leaders now must deliver on housing, on healthcare, and on protecting the people who sent them there, and it is our job to hold them to it. But today, let us allow ourselves to feel it. We walked into this election afraid. We are walking out of it with hope.
