Muslim Candidates Feel The Effect Of Trump Attacks On Ilhan Omar

President Donald Trump’s decision to vilify Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has had real, harmful effects not just on the first-year congresswoman, but on Muslim candidates running for public office at the state and local levels as well.

In March, Omar faced significant criticism ― including from members of her own party ― for comments about Israel, which they said played into anti-Semitic tropes. She apologized, but Trump and his allies used the dust-up to further paint her and the Democratic Party as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. In April, Trump tweeted a video that dishonestly purported to show Omar downplaying 9/11. He also continued to characterize her as anti-Semitic in tweets and speeches.

Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, saw a rise in death threats following all the Trump attacks. Her office said she “receives daily death threats ― almost all of them threatening to kill her because of her religion.”

The fallout didn’t just end there. HuffPost spoke to five Muslim Americans running for office in Virginia, which has state elections this year. Some of them saw an increase in death threats after the Trump attacks on Omar, underscoring the point made by many of Omar’s allies that the uproar was never really just about her ― it always had far more to do with her religion.