City councilman Jamal Osman ducks Feeding Our Future questions

Minneapolis Ward 6 council member Jamal Osman is back in the news over his links to the sprawling free-food scandal. But he isn’t answering any questions.

The latest round of controversy began last Friday, when state Attorney General Keith Ellison announced the dissolution of a non-profit founded by Osman’s wife, Ilo Amba. Her charity, Urban Advantage Services, reportedly took $461,000 out of the free-food programs during Urban’s brief lifespan. The money has never been accounted for.

Meanwhile, a series of three courtroom trials has been scheduled to begin early next year for twelve Feeding Our Future defendants. Of these 12 defendants, six have been directly linked to a different nonprofit, Stigma-Free International, originally founded by Osman and Amba.

Neither Osman nor Amba have been accused of any wrongdoing in the Feeding Our Future case. But neither have they publicly answered any questions about their involvement.

On Monday night, KARE-11’s Jennifer Hoff reported on the latest developments. At the end of her report, Hoff noted:

Neither Osman or Amba returned several voicemails and an email left by KARE 11. 

Not satisfied to leave it there, on Wednesday, Hoff tracked down Osman at City Hall. She reports:

Osman was at Wednesday’s [City Council] Committee of the Whole meeting, but left and came back. The second time he left for good before the meeting was over and we couldn’t ask him any questions. 

KARE 11 has reached out to Osman by phone, email and at his city office several times. He was also a no-show at the city’s same meeting on Tuesday. 

I suppose, at the end of the day, Osman need answer to only his constituents in Ward 6. Curiously, there seems to have been a small, but significant shift in the Ward 6 electorate in last week’s election.

Osman himself was not on the ballot this year, as he won’t face voters again until next November. You will recall that in his 2023 reelection, Osman, a Democrat, received less than 45 percent of the Ward 6 vote, and had to rely on 2nd-choice votes under Minneapolis’ ranked-choice voting system to prevail. Even then, Osman fell below 49 percent of the total in the four-way race.

Last week, the surprising result in Ward 6 was the vast improvement of Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. In 2020, Trump received a little over 1,200 votes in the ward, and he improved by more than 40 percent in 2024 to more than 1,700 votes.

While Ward 6 will never be mistaken for MAGA country, Trump also improved his share of the ward’s vote. [We should note that some slight redistricting took place between 2020 and 2024.]

Statewide, more than 1,500,000 voters backed Trump in 2024, an improvement of 35,000 votes (up 2.4 percent) over 2020 results. Trump also increased his share of the total vote by 1.4 percent.

This unexpected result in Ward 6 was unusual enough that it attracted the attention of the Minnesota Star Tribune, who reported:

Democrats lost support with Somali Minnesota voters in 2024 presidential election

Concerns about the Israel-Gaza war, the economy and not feeling heard contributed to shifting political tide

As evidence, the Star Tribune cites:

In the Somali American hub of Cedar-Riverside, support for [V.P. Kamala] 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.

Somehow, the Star Tribune was able to track down Osman this week for his reaction, and he’s quoted as saying:

“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.

While the Trump vote surged in Minneapolis (relatively speaking), some of the result for Harris may be attributable to overall lower turnout in the city. Minneapolis reports recording 219,000 votes in 2024, versus 238,000 in 2020. Turnout fell from 81.3 percent in 2020 to 78.1 percent this year. In 2020, turnout in Minneapolis exceeded the state average, this year it fell short.

The shortfall in Minneapolis was repeated throughout Hennepin County, as KARE-11 reports:

Hennepin County released results showing that about 3.5% fewer voters cast a ballot in the 2024 election than in 2020. This year, about 725,000 residents voted, in comparison to 760,000 four years earlier.  

Ultimately, 81.71% of residents voted in this year’s election including absentee ballots. 

Of the 35,000 fewer votes recorded in Hennepin County this year, most can be explained by the lower voter turnout in Minneapolis.

On the reduced turnout, both the Republican (Trump) and Democratic (Harris) candidates lost votes in Hennepin County in 2024 compared to 2020. However, Trump increased his share of the county vote slightly from 27.25 percent to 27.39 percent.

Likewise, in urban Ramsey County (St. Paul), voter turnout was down in 2024, but Trump’s share of the vote increased from 26.14 percent to 27.08 percent.

In politics, nothing lasts forever.