The Somali owner of a Minnesota daycare with reported fraud ties won a state legislative race last week in a historically red region.
Democratic state Rep.-elect Abdi Daisane flipped a Minnesota House seat held by Republicans over the past two decades, securing 51.6% of the vote to become his district’s first Somali-born lawmaker.
Daisane will represent St. Cloud, a city in central Minnesota about 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis. A predominantly white jurisdiction, St. Cloud had once earned the pejorative nickname “White Cloud” among local progressives due its resistance to immigrants, particularly from East Africa, looking to resettle there as they have in the surrounding areas.
However, the city has grown more racially diverse in recent years, with Somalis now making up around 8% of St. Cloud’s population, the third-highest percentage in the state behind Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Political observers have attributed Daisane’s win, in part, to St. Cloud’s shift in racial demographics. U.S. Census Bureau data show that the number of nonwhite or Hispanic residents in St. Cloud has doubled to 32% between 2010 and 2022.
Following his election Tuesday to the state legislature by about 3.35 percentage points, Daisane said his triumph sent “a message of its own because I’m everything that a lot of politicians are campaigning against these days: I’m Somali-American. I’m a Muslim. I’m black. I’m an immigrant.”
Daisane also overcame media reports tying his daycare, the Blooming Kids Child Care Center, to the country’s largest pandemic-era fraud scandal.
FRAUD FAILS TO STOP MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS FROM SWEEPING STATEWIDE
Daisane is the CEO of Blooming Kids. The St. Cloud-based daycare center claimed roughly $600,000 in federal child nutrition funds, including billing claims that were approved under the sponsorship of Partners in Nutrition, according to records obtained by Alpha News.
Partners in Nutrition was the second-largest sponsor of food distributors, outpaced only by Feeding Our Future, in a federally funded meal delivery program meant to feed disadvantaged children during the COVID-19 crisis.
Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit organization in Minnesota, led a criminal fraud ring of fake food distribution sites, dozens of which were operated by Somali immigrants, that fraudulently claimed money from the federal government for the cost of meals purportedly served.
Inside the Blooming Kids Child Care Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. (Facebook)
" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_0ef4ca.png?w=1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_0ef4ca.png" alt="Inside the Blooming Kids Child Care Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. (Facebook)" class="wp-image-4798025" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_0ef4ca.png 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_0ef4ca.png?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_0ef4ca.png?resize=768,512 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
Inside the Blooming Kids Child Care Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. (Facebook)
Partners in Nutrition, another nonprofit meal-provider sponsor near Minneapolis, recently agreed to an $18.5 million settlement with the Minnesota attorney general’s office for allegedly submitting similar false reimbursement claims to the state government, the local administrator of the federal food program.
“Claiming millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded reimbursements for astronomical amounts of meals that were never delivered to Minnesota’s children is despicable,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a September press release announcing the settlement deal with Partners in Nutrition.
As part of the settlement deal, Partners in Nutrition agreed to pay all remaining funds in its possession, dissolve as an entity, and cooperate with civil investigations into its business associates, site operators, and vendors.
Blooming Kids was never named in the Partners in Nutrition fraud case.
Since 2018, Blooming Kids has additionally received more than $7.29 million in government subsidies through Minnesota’s childcare assistance program, one of the safety-net state services targeted by fraudsters, according to public records released by the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee breaking down yearly payments to participating childcare providers.
FEEDING OUR FUTURE MASTERMIND SAYS SOMALI ACCOMPLICES SCAMMED HER
Oversight officials say Somali-owned daycares were largely responsible for defrauding the childcare subsidies program and that many of these subsidized centers did not actually take care of any children or had poor site conditions characteristic of sham operations.
A former worker from a neighboring business told Alpha News that they did not recall seeing children ever entering or leaving Blooming Kids, which is licensed to serve up to 113 children. The source said the front portion of the facility routinely appeared to be inactive, even during normal business hours, though Blooming Kids has a back entrance the ex-employee could not observe.
Blooming Kids also has a history of licensing violations, including inspection reports noting that staff were not supervising children at all times. Over the years, site inspectors also found unclean facilities at Blooming Kids, areas in disrepair, hazardous items accessible to children, and “prohibited disciplinary actions” against children in its care.
Certain children’s files also did not contain immunization records and supporting documentation was not readily available to show that staff met proper qualifications, according to citations from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Blooming Kids appears to have floor-to-ceiling tinted windows obscuring the outside view. (Google Maps)
" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_74b52c.png?w=1024" height="540" width="1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_74b52c.png?w=1024" alt="Blooming Kids appears to have floor-to-ceiling tinted windows obscuring the outside view. (Google Maps)" class="wp-image-4798044" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_74b52c.png 1396w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_74b52c.png?resize=300,158 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_74b52c.png?resize=768,405 768w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image_74b52c.png?resize=1024,540 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
Blooming Kids appears to have floor-to-ceiling tinted windows obscuring the outside view. (Google Maps)
Daisane’s campaign and the Blooming Kids Child Care Center did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
In the last legislative election cycle, Daisane ran unsuccessfully for the same House seat, losing in a landslide to Republican incumbent Rep. Bernie Perryman. This year, Daisane defeated Republican Mike Conway, the current St. Cloud City Council president, to clinch the vacancy about to be left by Perryman, who ran for Minnesota Senate instead.
For years, social justice activists have pushed to recruit more “people of color” onto St. Cloud’s governing boards and advisory committees, believing that the city’s leadership should reflect its changing racial makeup.
SOMALI COMMUNITY CARE PROVIDERS ARE VALUABLE SOURCE OF CAMPAIGN CASH FOR SOMALI POLITICIANS
While the St. Cloud community has turned into one of the state’s fastest-growing immigrant enclaves, one factor contributing to the growing proportion of ethnic minorities is the overall decline of Minnesota’s white population statewide.
From 2010 to 2020, the non-Hispanic white population in Minnesota decreased by approximately 50,000 residents as the state’s total population grew, according to figures from the Minnesota secretary of state’s office, which determined that net population growth was “fully attributable to BIPOC populations.”
The latest census count found that almost 1 in 4 Minnesotans, compromising 23.7% of the state’s population, identifies as black, indigenous, or another racial minority.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
