By - Editor-in-Chief
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MOGADISHU, 5 November 2026 US Representative Ilhan Omar won a fifth term in the House of Representatives in Tuesday's midterm elections, while other Somali Americans won seats in the Minnesota and Ohio state legislatures, preliminary results showed.
Omar, a Democrat, defeated Republican John Nagel in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District. Omar, a refugee from Somalia, has long been a target of President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric.
In 2018 she became the first Somali American elected to Congress and one of its first two Muslim women.
In central Minnesota, Abdi Daisane defeated Republican Mike Conway, president of the St. Cloud City Council, to become the area's first Somali American state lawmaker.
Daisane won Minnesota House District 14A with 9,164 votes, or 51.6%, against Conway's 8,570, unofficial results showed. He flipped the seat from Republican control after losing a race for the same seat in 2024.
"It feels good to lose and then come back and win," Daisane told St. Cloud LIVE on election night.
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In the Minnesota Senate, Omar Fateh and Zaynab Mohamed retained their seats in districts 62 and 63. In the state House, Mohamud Noor held District 60B, Anquam Mahamoud held District 62B and Samakab Hussein won again in District 65A, state results showed.
The victories give Somali Americans six seats in the Minnesota Legislature, all held by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the state affiliate of the Democrats.
In Ohio, Somali American Democrats Ismail Mohamed and Munira Yasin Abdullahi retained their seats in the state House.
The elections handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress, a major setback for Trump halfway through his second term.
Muslim candidates also made history, with Abdul El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American Democrat, winning Michigan's Senate race to become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.