Politics & Government

Fridley Resident Wants to Run for U.S. Senate but Filed for MN Senate

Fadumo Yusuf isn't sure what she'll do next, the St. Cloud Times reported.

A Fridley woman filed as a candidate Tuesday, intending to run for the U.S. Senate, according to the St. Cloud Times.

Instead, the Minnesota Secretary of State's office has Fadumo Yusuf signed up to run for the state Senate—and in Senate District 13, more than 60 miles from her Fridley home.

See her filing document for yourself.

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Yusuf is filed as a Republican. The other Republican in the race, incumbent state Sen. Michelle Fischbach, also waited until the deadline day of the filing period to make her candidacy official.

Yusuf told the St. Cloud Times she doesn't intend to run for state senate and hopes she can still somehow file for U.S. Senate.

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If she somehow managed to do that past Tuesday's filing deadline, besides incumbent U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. (Eight men filed as challengers to Klobuchar.)

Candidates have through Thursday to drop out. If she doesn't drop out, Gary Poser, elections director at the Secretary of State’s office, told the St. Cloud Times, Yusuf's candidacy will force an Aug. 14 primary election in Senate District 13 (barring a legal challenge to her residency).

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal wrote about Yusuf in a March 30, 2012 article about a business-law class at St. Mary's University:

The class has empowered students like 31-year-old Fadumo Yusuf, a part-time health care accountant and mother of four, in her daily transactions with businesses. The Fridley woman came to Minnesota from Somalia in 2001, and wants to make a career out of accounting — or, thanks to this class, study law — if she graduates as planned in 2013.

“I have a dream. My dream is to be a CPA. [But] I have to follow the law, I see a lot of frauds going on,” she said.

This business class has helped Yusuf better understand the responsibilities of business leaders, as well as the legal pitfalls for small-business owners in a system that can be difficult to navigate. She ran a Minneapolis travel agency that ran out of cash and went out of business in July, but said some of the lessons she’s learning in this class would have made her a better businesswoman.

“I’m a person who always loves to be more educated. … There’s a lot of things that can get you sued, and people don’t understand it,” Yusuf said.


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