COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Democrat state representative is urging Somali voters in central Ohio to back Democrat Amy Acton for governor, delivering the endorsement in Somali and describing the community's political project as a unified front for Somalia, according to reporting from Breitbart.
State Rep. Ismail Mohamed, in a video circulated to supporters, told viewers that "the most important race in Ohio is the governor's seat race," per Breitbart. He encouraged anyone in the Columbus area to vote and volunteer for Acton.
In an earlier video, Mohamed said the Somali community has at least 20 political representatives in the United States, named Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as their "federal representative," and said the group communicates in a shared group chat and cares most about issues in Somalia.
"It's our country. It's our people. Our aim is a united front for Somalia," Mohamed said, according to Breitbart.
The posts drew attention on social media. The account @libsoftiktok shared a clip of the Somali-language endorsement and wrote, "Somali reps are now endorsing Amy Acton for Ohio Governor in Somali. This should tell you everything you need to know on who Amy actually represents." In a second post quoting Mohamed, the account highlighted the line "Our aim is a united front to lobby for Somalia" and noted, "He just endorsed Amy Acton."
Central Ohio is home to the second-largest Somali community in the United States after Minneapolis. Nearly 70,000 Somali immigrants live in the Columbus area, according to one estimate cited by Breitbart, and the New York Times visited the area in January during an ICE enforcement effort.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, Breitbart reported, called ICE's presence "unwelcome" and opposed the Trump administration's immigration enforcement.
Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director, faces Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in Tuesday's election to succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. Polls have shown a tight race, and both candidates have drawn negative marks in campaign coverage.
The endorsement lands days before voters go to the polls and puts the question of what constituency Acton is courting squarely in front of Ohioans. Mohamed's videos were delivered in Somali and directed at the Columbus community, not to a general audience. The state representative's role in Acton's campaign is not clear, and Acton's campaign has not publicly addressed the videos.
Ohio's Somali population has become a flashpoint in the national immigration fight. The Trump administration has made mass deportation and interior enforcement central to its second term, and the ICE deployment in Columbus last winter drew a public clash with city leadership. That fight now overlaps with a governor's race decided by a margin that could be measured in a few thousand votes.
Our Take
Read that quote again. A sitting state representative does not tell an interviewer the community's aim is a united front for Somalia and then ask a foreign country's interests to decide an Ohio election, unless he believes the audience will agree. And he did believe it, well enough to say it on camera in Somali, aimed at Columbus, four hours before Breitbart put it in English.
Patriots, ask the simple question. If a white Republican state representative recorded a get-out-the-vote pitch in a language most Ohioans do not speak and told voters their project was to lobby for a foreign government, how many minutes would pass before the legacy media demanded his resignation? Acton gets a shrug instead, because her party has decided that some votes are owed and no questions are asked of the people who deliver them.
Ramaswamy should put this on a billboard. Not because Ohioans dislike immigrants — they don't — but because citizenship means something. The people Mohamed addresses are Americans or future Americans. They should be voting about Ohio's schools, Ohio's taxes, Ohio's roads, not a "united front" for a government in Mogadishu.
If Acton disagrees with that, she should say so, in English, on the record, before Tuesday. If she agrees, she should say that too, and see how many votes those 70,000 convert into. The question is simple: whom does Amy Acton work for?
