Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate race, becoming first Muslim US senator
Doctor and progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has defeated Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan's US Senate race. He will become the first Muslim member of the US Senate.
Abdul El-Sayed, a doctor and progressive Democrat, has defeated Republican Mike Rogers in the US Senate race in Michigan and will become the first Muslim to serve in the US Senate. He declared victory early on Wednesday at the Michigan Democratic Party headquarters in Detroit. Michigan is considered a swing state where both major parties have a realistic chance of winning, so the contest was closely watched.
El-Sayed's win adds to the Democrats' majority in the Senate, after the party took control of the US Congress's upper chamber on Tuesday.
The campaign
El-Sayed is a former health director of Wayne County. Earlier this year he won the Democratic primary, beating Haley Stevens, the favorite of the party establishment. He supports Medicare for All, a proposal for universal health insurance, and calls for ending US military aid to Israel. In his victory speech he said taxes should be spent on schools, healthcare and infrastructure at home rather than on war.
Rogers is a former congressman who was endorsed by President Donald Trump. He lost the 2024 Senate race to Elissa Slotkin by roughly 0.3 percentage points. In the final weeks of this campaign he broke with Trump on tariffs and the war with Iran, calling for an end to the US-Canada trade war and a swift conclusion to the Iran conflict.
El-Sayed's opponents, including Trump, focused their campaign on his name and faith. The president called him a "jihadist", a "communist" and a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed said his critics chose division over addressing the cost of gas and groceries.
Spending and polling
The pro-Israel lobby group Aipac, through its super PAC United Democracy Project, spent roughly $30m in the primary trying to stop El-Sayed, a record for a single race. According to AdImpact, more than $220m in total had been spent on advertising in the general election by mid-October.
A Fox News poll in August found 54% of Michigan voters considered his positions too extreme, while 51% said Rogers was too close to Trump. Both candidates were competing to succeed Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who has held the seat since 2015 and is leaving office.
