In a race roiled in recent weeks by scandal, Liban Mohamed, the Muslim son of Somali immigrants, pulled off a surprising upset in a crowded 1st Congressional District, winning the endorsement of a majority of Democratic delegates at the party’s state convention Saturday.

Mohamed emerged as the top choice in a field with two candidates — state Sen. Nate Blouin and Salt Lake City Council member Eva Lopez Chavez — stung by scandal in the past two weeks and a front-runner, former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who some delegates viewed as too conservative.

After several rounds of ranked-choice voting, McAdams placed second.

“It’s a progressive’s time to lead. It’s the working class’ time to lead,” Mohamed said after the results were announced Saturday night. “The support is growing as people get to know us and learn about the campaign we’re running, the positivity that we seek to put out into our community, the fact that we’re focused on tangible outcomes for our communities and not headlines.”

Blouin, Mohamed, McAdams and Michael Farrell all gathered the 7,000 signatures to automatically qualify for the June primary, making the outcome largely irrelevant, but providing a barometer of where the support of the party’s most-engaged base lies.

“Liban is a fantastic candidate. ... I think he’s got an inspiring story,” McAdams said. “We’re going to get out there and continue to make our case and I think there’s a real difference. I have a track record of securing wins and getting accomplishments. ... Being progressive has to mean making progress and I have delivered time and again on tough issues.”

Lopez Chavez failed to meet the signature threshold, and candidate Luis Villareal did not gather signatures. After failing to get the 45% support to advance to the primary, both were eliminated from the race.

Less than two weeks before the convention, Punchbowl News, based in Washington, D.C., reported that Blouin had posted a series of crude messages in online forums that made light of sex abuse, used slurs for people with disabilities and ridiculed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The condemnation was swift and severe, with several groups calling on him to drop out of the race and Salt Lake County mayor Jenny Wilson calling on Blouin to resign from the Utah Senate. State Rep. Grant Miller withdrew his endorsement of Blouin, as did the Salt Lake County Progressive Caucus.

Among those who demanded he drop out of the race was Lopez Chavez, a Salt Lake City Council member, who said that leadership is “defined by integrity and consistency — especially in how we treat women and respond to harm.”

“We cannot excuse behavior — past or present — that trivializes or undermines the seriousness of sexual violence, assault and harassment,” she said.

That statement did not sit well with four people — three of them elected officials — who alleged Lopez Chavez restrained them during what they considered unwanted sexual advances, The Salt Lake Tribune first reported this week.

Lopez Chavez denies any “wrongdoing” and she welcomes a “fair and independent investigation” into the accusations.

And in February, based on concerns raised about Lopez Chavez’s behavior, Salt Lake City Council Chair Alejandro Puy asked staff to conduct a review of the council’s code of conduct to ensure that anyone who doesn’t feel safe has an avenue to report incidents."

Blouin opened his speech to delegates acknowledging the online posts.

“Reckoning with your past mistakes is an important part of life. It hurts. It can make you feel physically ill, but it also makes you stronger,” he said. “We built a campaign that can weather the storm and that makes some people nervous — the people who keep selling us the same bill of goods, who convinced us that we better leave well enough alone.”

He said the district needs a representative who will vote to raise the minimum wage, protect public lands and strengthen labor unions. “Ben McAdams voted against all of them when he was in Congress.”

Blouin had consolidated considerable support among the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and released a poll that showed him trailing McAdams among primary voters by 13 points with everyone else in the field in single digits.

McAdams’ speech to delegates was interrupted by a delegate who shouting about Israel’s bombing of Gaza and thrusting a finger at him, yelling, “You’re a liar!” until the delegate was escorted out of the auditorium.

In a swipe at his opponents, McAdams said Republicans are “banking on us tearing each other apart, banking on us sending them someone untested, someone they will use as the poster child for why” the ban on gerrymandering should be repealed.

His most rousing applause came when he said, “I voted to impeach Donald Trump and I’d do it again!”

McAdams was a state senator and Salt Lake County mayor before being elected to Congress in 2018. He has raised the most money — and at $1.5 million, has much in the bank as the rest of the Democratic field.

Mohamed, who is 27, said this election is an opportunity for a “new generation of leadership.”

Last week, he won the endorsements of the Utah Progressive Caucus, state Rep. Angela Romero, former state Sen. Derek Kitchen — who briefly ran for the nomination himself. And on Friday he was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and the Salt Lake County Progressive Caucus withdrew its endorsement of Blouin and backed Mohamed instead.

“From the beginning of this race, everybody told me ‘Liban, this is too bold, too different, too risky,’” he said. “So I ask you, what is the bigger risk? The risk of fighting for economic justice, or the risk of staying silent as our costs rise and wages stay stagnant? The risk of hope, or the certainty of the status quo? The greatest risk at this moment is not taking a risk at all.”