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California Democratic candidate Omar Siddiqui on Tuesday talked about discrimination within his own own party, describing how party officials tried to get him to change his name because they believed him to be "too brown" to have a chance at winning in the 48th Congressional District.
Siddiqui, who was on the ballot in Tuesday's jungle primary and was seeking to unseat Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.), appeared on Fox News to tell his experience with party officials and how he refused to change his name. He went on to explain what he would do as a congressman to unite his district and bring Americans together.
"‘You have government experience, you've worked with the FBI, but you know what? The name Omar Siddiqui will not work in Orange County. You need to change your name,'" said Siddiqui, reflecting on what the local party officials said to him. "You can imagine that was just unacceptable to me. I do not want to be judged on the color of my skin, but rather the content of my character."
Host Martha MacCallum asked Siddiqui if he called these party officials "out by name."
"Well, what I did was I told them point blank, I said I'm not going to change my name. I'm not going to drop out of the race because I think somebody by the name of Omar Siddiqui is not going to have a chance in Orange County. And I moved forward, and we ran an excellent campaign, a clean campaign, and we did very well. I'm very excited about the results that are going to come out tonight," Siddiqui said.