DM Monitoring
WASHINGTON: Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who is staunchly anti-Israel, won a highly contentious U.S. Senate election, defeating Trump-backed Republican nominee Mike Rogers in a race during which El-Sayed faced racist attacks attacks and deep party fractures.
El-Sayed, a 42-year-old physician of Egyptian decent, overcame more than $100 million in opponent’s spending to clinch the election, a hostile campaign climate, and a stunning last-minute defection from his party primary’s election in August rival Haley Stevens to secure the seat vacated by retiring Senator Gary Peters.
His historic victory as the first Muslim U.S. Senator represents a tectonic shift in American politics, cementing a new era of diverse leadership in the upper chamber.
“We did it,” El-Sayed told wildly cheering supporters in Detroit, Michigan, after his victory was officially confirmed early Wednesday. “We showed that in a battle between the money and the many, that the many really can win.”
He celebrated the shift from inshallah to alhamdulillah, offered a direct remark to President Donald Trump regarding his title, and emphasized that grassroots power had triumphed over massive corporate money.
El-Sayed’s Muslim faith became the target of Islamophobic attacks during the campaign. In August, Senator Tommy Tuberville called El-Sayed a “terrorist,” while other Republican leaders labeled him a “radical Islamist” and “jihadist sympathizer.” In late October, President Donald Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist.”
El-Sayed pushed back against what he called “shameful attacks” levied against him, saying he is not guided by any particular ideology.
Criticism of US foreign policy, particularly Washington’s support for Israel, featured prominently in his campaign.
Michigan has the second-largest Arab-American population in the United States after California, with the Arab-American Institute estimating that the community numbers more than 392,000.
Michigan was home to upwards of 206,000 Muslim American voters in 2020, per the civic organization Emgage. Local media indicate there are around 7.4 million registered voters in the state, meaning Muslim-Americans could account for roughly 3% of the electorate.
Alongside domestic issues, El-Sayed made opposition to US support for Israel a key part of his campaign, pledging to end American military assistance to the state and impose an arms embargo covering both offensive and defensive weapons. He has regularly described Israel as an apartheid state that has committed genocide against Palestinians.
At the same time, he criticized Hamas’ actions in October 2023.
Asked by CBS, an American TV network, if he supports Israel’s right to exist, El-Sayed said “yes, if there is a shared understanding” of a two-state solution.
The issue became a major point of contention in his Democratic primary against Stevens. The divide continued after El-Sayed won the August primary, with Stevens publicly criticizing his comments on Israel and the campaign’s handling of concerns about antisemitism.
El-Sayed has called for an immediate end to the US war with Iran and a return to diplomacy to prevent Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons. The senator-elect’s campaign platform points to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a model for resolving the issue, arguing that military intervention is neither effective nor justified.
In an October ad geared toward Republicans, El-Sayed said that he wants to “stop wasting our tax dollars on overseas wars.”
When asked by an Iranian-American student in September to stand with anti-government protesters in Iran and denounce the Islamic Republic, El-Sayed said he supports “democratic movements” but is against “regime change” abroad, adding that “it is the responsibility of the people of Iran to decide what their leadership should look like.”
El-Sayed has expressed criticism of US aid to other countries in the Middle East, telling reporters in late October, “I don’t think we should be funding foreign militaries generally. That’s Israel. It’s also Egypt. It’s also Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE.”
Egypt receives around $1.3 billion in annual US military aid, an arrangement established following the North African country’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates do not receive US military assistance, but are major buyers of American arms.
El-Sayed has also condemned US military aid to Azerbaijan, emphasizing Armenian security and self-determination, and was endorsed by the Armenian National Committee of America for those positions.
By contrast, El-Sayed is supportive of US aid to Ukraine. Ukraine has received more than $68 billion in US security assistance since the Russian invasion in 2022, according to a June Congressional Research Service report.
El-Sayed has denied any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, pushing back on allegations from Republicans. El-Sayed told Fox News in October that he “will support a terror designation for any organization that is engaged in or committed to political violence” in response to a question about the Trump administration’s January terrorist designations of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.
On Syria, El-Sayed told Al Jazeera Arabic in October that he supports the removal of Assad regime-era sanctions on the country, which the Trump administration lifted last year.
