2020 Primary Campaign Ad - Sept. 2, 2021

Ilhan Omar: As organizers we know the most important things are that you have to build trust with people and that you have to organize from a place of love. We organize from a place of love because we want our communities to get what they deserve. We want to organize from a place of love because we believe that compassion, and empathy, and courage are contagious. We organize from a place of love because we know that hate is too big of a burden to bear. And I think, for this election, for me it isn't about voting for ourselves. It isn't about just getting in that ballot box and thinking about you, and what you might win or lose. But it's about voting on behalf of our community, on behalf of our society, on behalf of our state, and most importantly on behalf of our democracy.
Everything we believe in, we care about, and we love, is on the ballot. I know most of us who have run for office have probably told you this before, that this is an important election; but, this is truly one of the most consequential elections any of us will ever participate in. Because I know that many of us have felt the personal pain of this public health pandemic, and have felt what it means to have a president, and an administration that does not have the ability to have an inch, an ounce, of a -- compassion, for the lives that are lost, for the lives that are forever going to be changed, like mine, and for the lives that are economically devastated because of it. We also know that every single hateful, xenophobic rhetoric that the president has uttered since starting his campaign in 2015, has now been implemented as part of a hateful policy. Whether it is directed towards immigrants, whether it is directed towards Muslims, whether it is directed towards our trans community, whether it is directed towards our queer family.
And so, I know, that this election will allow us to restore -- not just hope, not just decency, not just empathy, not just compassion, but love.