Liban Mohamed Wins Utah Democratic Convention With 51 Percent

Liban Mohamed, a 27-year-old son of Somali immigrants, received 51 percent of the vote at the Utah Democratic convention last month to defeat former congressman Ben McAdams and advance to the June primary in the state’s first congressional district.

All four candidates in the race, including state senator Nate Blouin and attorney Michael Farrell, had already qualified for the ballot by gathering signatures. The newly drawn district is more compact and centered on Salt Lake County. Mohamed, who previously worked in public policy at Meta and TikTok, was born in a small Utah town.

He drew parallels between his family’s refugee experience and the state’s Latter-day Saint community, which faced religious persecution in American history. “In a lot of ways, many people here see themselves as refugees,” Mohamed said in a phone interview.

Mohamed highlighted the district’s demographics, noting 60,000 refugees, 60,000 Muslims, and nearly 120,000 people from the Latinx community. “This district is not what most people think,” Mohamed said. He said his support reflected voter frustration with repeated failures to represent working-class and immigrant communities.

“The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Mohamed said. ” The outcome followed years of legal efforts by a non-partisan group to reinstate an anti-gerrymandering initiative known as Proposition 4.

The seat was created after successful anti-gerrymandering litigation that produced a Democratic-leaning district.