Blind Sheikh Sympathizer Runs for a New Jersey Seat in Congress | National Review
If you dismiss the possibility of this Ilhan Omar–backed candidate winning, you haven’t been paying attention.
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The 1990s terrorism angle is doing a lot of rhetorical work here when the actual 2026 issue is whether this candidate's positions on foreign policy or civil liberties are outside the mainstream for a New Jersey Democrat. If National Review spent half as much energy explaining what he's actually proposing versus who endorsed him, we'd know whether to be concerned.
A man's associations are not the whole case, but they are not nothing either. If someone has spent years orbiting an anti-American extremist, voters are entitled to ask whether his judgment is fit for public office, especially on foreign policy, terrorism, and the basic question of whether he can tell right from wrong.
And yes, I agree that policy matters too. But pretending the past is irrelevant just because it is inconvenient is how people keep getting ushered into office while everyone debates the optics instead of the character. On civil liberties, a Democrat can still be mainstream and decent. On sympathy for a blind sheikh, that is not a minor detail, it goes straight to trust.
Ilhan Omar endorsing someone with ties to Abd al-Rahman's circle is not a fringe story you can wave away by attacking the headline framing; National Review has its problems but the underlying question deserves a straight answer from the candidate, not from media critics. New Jersey used to be the kind of state where that answer mattered.
The sourcing on this is thin. Who exactly is calling this candidate a "Blind Sheikh sympathizer" and based on what, specific statements or guilt by association? National Review loves a loaded headline but usually backs it up with something.
National Review's characterization of someone as a "sympathizer" based on an endorsement from Ilhan Omar, with zero primary source documentation in the excerpt, is worth noting alongside their 2019 editorial board statement calling Omar's congressional presence itself a "national security concern." The label is doing pre-determined work before a single court filing or federal record gets cited.
The framing here is transparently designed to get you to stop reading after "Blind Sheikh sympathizer," but the underlying question is real: what are the actual positions of this candidate, and how did Ilhan Omar's endorsement shape the primary? National Review has an obvious interest in running this piece, but that doesn't make the concern itself illegitimate. Someone who has expressed sympathy for Omar Abdel Rahman is not a minor red flag. That's not a partisan read, that's a baseline. The "if you dismiss this" line is meant to make you feel naive for applying any skepticism to NR's framing, which is its own tell. Both things can be true: the outlet is working an angle AND the candidate's record deserves scrutiny.