Watch a few minutes of TV, and you’re just about guaranteed to see a campaign ad.

You’re also just about guaranteed to hear about fraud. Republican candidates across the state are looking to ride a wave of frustration with Gov. Tim Walz over fraud in government assistance programs under his administration.

And several of those ads don’t simply call it fraud; some refer to “Somali” fraud.

“Somali fraudsters have stolen billions, and Amy Klobuchar made it worse,” alleges an ad paid for by a political action committee called Restore Sanity.

In an ad by her campaign, Republican Senate candidate Michele Tafoya promises to “deport non-citizen fraudsters.”

Minnesota’s Somali Americans have been a target of criticism around fraud — spiraling at times into hate speech against the community as a whole.

The biggest of the state’s fraud cases, Feeding Our Future, has resulted in more than 65 people convicted of fraud; the majority are Somali American. The convicted ringleader of the scandal is a white American citizen. Last year, federal officials cited fraud as a reason to send a surge of federal immigration enforcement agents to the state.

Now, rhetoric targeting Somali Minnesotans is continuing in some campaign ads.

Dan Myers is an associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota who studies political ads. He recognizes an old advertising tactic at work here.

“This is a long history in American politics of trying to cast part of the other party not just as people we disagree with, but as people who are not ‘us,’” Myers said.

In this election cycle, that means trying to link the Democrats to Minnesota’s Somali community — the “them” side of the “us-versus-them” narrative that ads are looking to create, Myers said.

In another ad funded and created by Restore Sanity, a video clip shows DFL governor hopeful Amy Klobuchar speaking a phrase in Somali to a crowd.

“Remember who Amy Klobuchar had words for,” the narrator says, “and who she didn't.”

The clip of Klobuchar is from a 2017 community event, unrelated to fraud and before the Feeding Our Future scheme began. Reviews of some of Restore Sanity’s ads have noted some contain exaggerations and inaccuracies — not uncommon in campaign ads across the political spectrum.

Myers said those kinds of explicit racial attacks fell out of favor in advertising a couple decades ago, after research showed that it turned some viewers away and became less socially acceptable. But he’s seen more of it since 2016.

“I think one thing that Donald Trump has done is to normalize talking very explicitly about race in America and about a particular view of race in America, and so that's just made it a lot more acceptable for people to say explicitly racially targeted things in the public sphere and not pay the same price for it,” Myers said.

He noted that many of the ads that explicitly name the Somali community are created by political action committees, not the campaigns themselves. They’re often attack ads, mentioning only the name of the candidate they oppose.

“They don't have to worry as much about muddying the name of the candidate they're for,” Myers said.

And some of the more explicit ones funded by PACs are harder to find online, appearing only in on-air commercial breaks. Restore Sanity has posted several of its ads on its social media; it has not posted the ad that shows clips of Klobuchar speaking Somali.

Recent news has set off another wave of commentary targeting the Somali community. A shooting in Eden Prairie, which law enforcement officials attributed to gang activity, led some elected officials and residents to call for scrutiny against “Somali gangs.” More criticism came after the FBI charged a Somali American teenager with planning a shooting at the Mall of America.

Campaign ads have followed suit.

A narrator in an ad opposing DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison says, “first the fraud, now Somali gangs.” That ad is paid for by a group called the Safer Minnesota Fund.

“We need safe communities, not Somali gang shootouts,” Republican candidate for governor Lisa Demuth says in a new ad by her campaign.

Local Somali leaders pushed back on that characterization, and on blaming the entire Somali community for the actions of a small group.

Myers said the campaign ad tactics likely run the risk of losing Somali American voters. That demographic typically swings toward Democrats, but in 2024, showed some movement away from the party.

Salman Fiqy considers himself one of those lost Somali Republican voters. He once ran for office unsuccessfully as a Republican, and he’d worked to bring Somali voters into the party.

But he decided last year to pull back, after Trump made negative comments about Somali Americans. This year’s campaign rhetoric, he said, is more of what drove him away.

“It's very sad to see a whole entire political campaign built on vilification of the Somali community,” Fiqy said.

More Somali community leaders have said the campaign rhetoric — and the broader stereotyping of the Somali community — is concerning. Some leaders say they worry the words will translate to violence. Several mosques have stepped up security.

“It's unfathomable to paint an entire community with the actions of just a few people,” State Senator Zaynab Mohamed said.

She said — whether it's from campaign ads or elected officials — those comments don’t reflect the community.

“These people have been in Minnesota for decades, and this is home. Some of them are in their second and third generations,” she said. “They're going to continue to serve this community and be your local neighbors. And the actions of a few are not an indictment of the entire community.”

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.