ELECTION 2025

MEET THE CHALLENGERS

Four vie to unseat Mayor Frey

  • Meet the challengers_Cam Gordon.mp3

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City elections will be held in November 2025, and by the time Mayor Jacob Frey kicked off his reelection campaign in January, four candidates had already stepped forward to challenge him.
Two challengers currently hold office, and all four have connections to south Minneapolis. Omar Fateh is the state senator for the southside’s District 62. Emily Koski is the Ward 11 City Council Member, and Brenda Short ran unsuccessfully for the Ward 9 City Council seat in 2021.  
DeWayne Davis has been a pastor at two southside churches; first at All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church and, currently, at Plymouth Congregational Church. He is seeking elected office for the first time.
 
WHERE THEY COME FROM
Davis was born and raised in Indianola, Miss. in a family with 15 children. After high school, he moved to Washington, DC and lived there for 24 years before becoming a minister in 2012 and moving to Minneapolis in 2013. He has lived in the Willard-Hay neighborhood ever since. He was recently chaplain of the Minnesota State Senate, and co-chair of Mayor Frey’s Community Safety Workgroup from Dec. 2021 to June 2022 when it presented its final report.
Fateh was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Annandale, Va. He moved to Minneapolis 10 years ago and currently lives in Stevens Square. His parents immigrated from Somalia before he was born. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from George Mason University and has worked as a community engagement specialist for the city, as well as with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Minnesota Department of Revenue and University of Minnesota. In 2020, he was elected to the state legislature and became the first Somali American and first Muslim to serve in the state senate. 
Frey grew up in Oakton, Va., graduated from the College of William and Mary and the law school at Villanova University. Then he moved to Minneapolis. He was elected to represent Ward 3 on the city council in 2013, and was elected mayor in 2017 and again in 2021. He lives in the Nicollet Island East Bank neighborhood.
Koski was born and raised in Northeast Minneapolis and has lived in the city all her life, except for when she attended the University of St. Thomas and lived in St. Paul. She now lives in the Page neighborhood by Pearl Park. 
“My family raised me on the value of public service, and that is the grounding I have in politics,” said Koski, whose father, Al Hofstad, is a former council member and mayor. Koski worked in corporate marketing and owned a small business prior to joining the city council in 2021. 
Brenda Short grew up in Iowa and worked on farms and in meat processing plants. She moved to Minneapolis following a childhood tragedy, which led to a period of homelessness before she found her first apartment on 34th and Chicago Ave. She later bought a house in the Powderhorn neighborhood where she ran two small businesses and lived for over 30 years.
 
PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS
“One of my greatest accomplishments was opening a 24/7 daycare in my home, which my parents lovingly referred to as the ‘dream daycare,’” Short said. “Now, over 20 years later, grown-up children still run up to me, hug me, and share how much they loved being in my daycare. One of my last daycare kids even works for the city of Minneapolis, and I get the joy of giving her a big hug every time I attend a city council meeting. It reminds me of how important community support is for single families.”
Koski is particularly proud of her work on the city council that created the city’s Community Safety Audit Division, supported the Behavioral Crisis Response Teams, enhanced the Domestic Violence Navigators Program, created pilot programs supporting small businesses, and advanced climate action and water initiatives.
Fateh noted several bills he has written and worked to get passed, including  Northstar Promise Act that provides free tuition for residents from families making less than $80,000 to attend public colleges in Minnesota. “I am proud to have championed this bill that has allowed thousands of students all across the state to be able to attend college for free,” said Fateh. 
One of Davis’s proudest accomplishments was co-chairing the mayor’s Community Safety Workgroup. “With respect and collegiality,” said Davis, “we were able to agree upon a series of recommendations that would help the mayor address the city’s public safety challenges head-on and provide the mayor with a set of recommendations that would set the foundation for substantive changes in policing and safety within our city.” 
 
POLITICAL BEGINNINGS 
Davis first got involved in politics when people at his junior high school were protesting a school board decision not to hire a Black man as superintendent in the school district that served a majority of Black students. Later he participated in the Close-Up Foundation and American Legion Boys State and Boys Nation. After college he worked for members of Congress, including as the appropriations director for then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Koski was introduced to politics early. “I watched my dad, a former mayor of Minneapolis, care deeply for residents and neighbors – that was his motivation to work hard for our city every day and I share that.” She also grew up with a childhood friend, Kari Dziedzic, living just blocks away from her. “She was also a mentor of mine, a steady perspective I could rely on when I needed it the most,” Koski said.
Short was inspired “to bring real change to my city” by the police officer killing of Justine Damand and the lack reform that followed. She remembers watching the trial seeing “the mayor make false promises to [Damond’s] family, saying that police reform would happen, despite his background in criminal justice.” This motivated her to run for city council in 2021 with a “campaign focused on Justine Damond and the urgent need for police reform.”  
Fateh recalls following local and national politics from a very young age. “It was always apparent to me that politics had a great impact on the lives of my family and the people in my community,“ he said. “I witnessed and experienced firsthand the harm and marginalization that immigrants, people of color and working-class people experience in this country.” 
 
TOP PRIORITIES
The four candidates have all identified priorities they hope to share in the months ahead. They all include housing and safety.   
Fateh, for example, supports enacting rent stabilization, the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, the Affordable Housing Right of First Refusal ordinance, increased funding for shelters and adopting “a compassionate response to encampments that centers public health and human dignity, rather than our current mayor’s practice of criminalizing homelessness. 
“Minneapolis desperately needs innovative public safety solutions that transcend traditional policing,” said Fateh, who wants to invest in the Behavior Crisis Unit, strengthen the fire department, and implement the city’s Safe and Thriving Communities Plan. “We must pursue bold and transformative approaches to public safety to end the cycle of violence and brutality that has held our city captive for so many years,” he said. 
In the area of energy and the environment, Fateh supports a city carbon emissions tax, 24-hour bus lanes on Hennepin Avenue, closure of the HERC incinerator, and the I-94 Twin Cities Boulevard project.
Davis, Short and Koski also highlight a more respectful and inclusive approach to governance.  
Davis lists “dignity” as the first priority.  “We need leadership that treats everyone with dignity, recognizing that all too often, in the pursuit of economic growth and prosperity, there is a risk that working people and families may get left behind,” he said. “As mayor, I would keep the lines of communication and engagement to every part of the city so that we can hear the stories and concerns of the people from every corner of the city.” 
He also prioritized “opportunity” which, to him, includes “the opportunity to earn a living wage, have access to adequate affordable housing, and a responsive city that will partner with them to realize their aspirations for the good quality of life.”
In terms of safety, he hopes to “coordinate a collective effort to pursue police and public safety reform and discern and implement best practices in community safety and violence prevention and intervention.” 
Short puts affordable housing, including homeownership, rental housing, and safe spaces for our unhoused neighbors and “financial growth that benefits everyone, no matter your zip code or background” at the top of her list.  
She also prioritizes public safety. “Our city has not healed after four long years, and we need a leader who can build a bridge between the community and our peace officers,” she said. 
She also prioritizes the establishment an “Ebony Alert” alert program. “Women and children of color, including Native, Latino, and African American communities, are not prioritized when they go missing, and this must change,” she said. “The Amber Alert system has failed these communities.”
Short observed, “We cannot rebuild our city if we cannot all come together. I understand this will be a difficult conversation, but as your mayor, I promise to allow everyone a seat at the table to voice their concerns, and I will stand by my word.”
Koski agrees that safety, housing and supporting the local economy are critically important, and stresses working in collaboration, calling herself a “bridge builder.” She supports investing in “comprehensive public safety that leads to effective oversight,” stable, affordable housing and “bringing humanity and care to our homelessness crisis,” supporting our local economy, including small businesses and working families, and “running a city government that works better, together.”  

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