On June 5, 2018, Ilhan Omar filed to run for the US House of Representatives from Minnesota's fifth congressional district after six-term incumbent Keith Ellison (the first Muslim ever elected to Congress) announced that he would not seek reelection. In the November 2018 general election, Ilhan Omar won with 78 percent of the vote. She and former Michigan state representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were the first Muslim women ever elected to Congress and they joined my friend Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN) as the three Muslim members who serve in the US House of Representatives today. (Congresswoman Omar received the largest percentage of the vote of any female congressional candidate in Minnesota state history, and she was sworn in on a copy of the Quran owned by her grandfather.)

XREF: Historical record of first Muslim women in Congress, relevant to later controversies and political history.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 452