Minnesota Muslims speak out on Trump and what drove their vote in 2024

In Minnesota, Muslims and Somali Americans talked politics, religion and how their votes were swayed in the 2024 election. Some showed a new affinity for the Republican Party under Donald Trump. 

“Somalis were inherently Democrats,” Salman Fiqy told Fox News Digital.

Fiqy explained further that the first wave of Somali immigrants came to the U.S. in the late 90s and engaged in politics during the Obama era. 

“So that’s why they saw themselves aligned with Democrats and then things have changed for the worse with the Democrats,” Fiqy said.

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Fiqy is an outspoken Republican and conservative who has publicly endorsed President Donald Trump. He confidently told Fox News Digital that many Somalians voted for President Trump.

The top issue was education, the Minneapolis local said.

“The LGBTQ agendas pushing towards kids, where we tend to have big families, we value kids and … We see things from a conservative lens,” Fiqy said.

A majority of the Somali population is Muslim, government data states.

Somali Americans’ support for the Democratic Party has dropped since the 2020 presidential election of President Joe Biden. In Cedar-Riverside in Minnesota, the home to many Somali immigrants, support for Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris dropped 14 points.

Over 25,000 Somali Americans live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many fled their country’s civil war in the 1990s. The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has traditionally been home to immigrants, including Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. Currently, Somalians are the predominant group in the community, establishing several businesses and a “Somali Mall” in Cedar-Riverside.

“They [Somali Americans] were very scared of how their children would be brought up in that situation, and they preferred to vote for Trump with those views, even though they knew Trump was coming with the baggage, and they preferred to take on the baggage,” Fatmata told Fox News Digital.

A “copy practitioner,” Fatmata owns a business in Karmel Mall, located in the Whittier neighborhood in Minneapolis. Karmel is the first Somali shopping center in the U.S., hosting a plethora of Somali businesses, including barbershops, restaurants, clothing stores, electronic retail and hair salons.

Fatmata is not Somalian and identifies as Black. She told Fox News Digital that she is Muslim and often engages with the Somali community. Her business provides copy that “aligns more with the Islamic view of copying.” She planted her business in the Somali shopping center because it was easier to find clients.

She added that Muslim values drove her counterparts and Somali Americans to vote.

“I think one of the main issues with Muslims voting … specifically voting for Trump, is because of issues that align with their religious values, that they felt like things were going too much to the right, and they did not agree with those things,” Fatmata said.

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Trump also gained Muslim voters last election, more than his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, an exit poll from The Council on American-Islamic Relations states.

Fatmata told Fox News Digital that many Somali Americans did not like Trump’s rhetoric on deportations, yet still voted for the Republican candidate.

“We knew it was coming. It was those choices we had to make knowing that these are the things he stands for, that perhaps we don’t agree as the minority community.”

One business owner in Karmel told Fox News Digital that he voted for Trump because of his pro-business policies. 

“I support and I voted [for] Mr. Trump last time. A few things … [I] think it was better for the business because, since I’m a business guy and the tax break that he was giving us also. Yeah, that was the reason that I support it,” a business owner who did not want to disclose his identity told Fox News Digital in an audio recording.

Over in Cedar-Riverside, Fox News Digital spoke with a neighborhood pharmacist who said that Somali Americans don’t have anything in common with Trump.

“I don’t think any Somali person, including me or my family, or even as a Somali in general, supported him. I mean, what does he have in common with the Somali community? What are you going to ask for yourself? I mean, there’s no commonality,” said a pharmacist who worked at Cedar Pharmacy in the Somali Mall.

“I don’t see any illegal immigrants here. The United States has always been a country for immigrants from the beginning,” the Somalian pharmacist said.

Across the street from Cedar Pharmacy, another business owner named Salah who ran a restaurant called Barakalaa Somali Cuisine shared a conflicting statement. When asked whether Somalians supported Trump, he responded “yes.”

“I see everybody all together in the community vote for the candidate,” Salah said.

Fatmata said that the choice was not easy for Muslims and Somali Americans.

“Do we vote for him to protect our children’s religious views, plus everything else that he has? Perhaps, last time it was the Muslim ban and those things. Do we still vote for him versus do we sell out our children’s religious upbringing and take that? So, it’s a lot. But, people had to weigh that,” Fatmata said.

“The ones who voted for him. And I think some of these things, when it comes to your children that are dear and near to us, they just had to take some really bitter pills. And I think that’s why some people voted for him, not because they wanted to vote for him 100%, but he may have been just the better choice or option because they felt like it was just better for their children.”