When Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic nomination for an open Senate seat in Michigan back in August, it teed up the first true swing-state test for the party’s left faction, which had largely been confined to representing progressive enclaves in the Trump era.
They just passed that test. El-Sayed defeated GOP nominee Mike Rogers, and he’ll be the newest US senator from Michigan in January.
His win is historic; El-Sayed will be the first Muslim to serve in the Senate. It also may be just the start: His charisma and ability to go viral have already made him a political star; some of his fans are already anticipating a future presidential run.
Yet his path to this point was far from easy. El-Sayed battled the Democratic establishment-backed US Rep. Haley Stevens in one of the most intense and bitter Democratic primaries in the country, and had to beat back an astonishing $30 million in AIPAC spending on Stevens’s behalf.
Then, in the general election, El-Sayed faced Islamophobic attacks from Republicans like President Donald Trump, who called him a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” who would create “a nightmare of violence and terror” in the US.
El-Sayed also maintained tense relations with some pro-Israel Democrats, who argued he was slow to criticize antisemitic rhetoric from his own supporters. These tensions came to a boiling point just two days before the election, when his primary rival Stevens stunned the political world by endorsing Rogers, saying El-Sayed hadn’t done enough to condemn an ad by a super PAC not affiliated with his campaign that had been criticized as antisemitic.
Other Jewish Democrats, however, supported and defended El-Sayed — including Sen. Bernie Sanders, a longtime supporter of his.
Indeed, El-Sayed’s political platform can be said to epitomize the next generation of the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. Domestically, he attacks billionaire and corporate influence, backs sweeping social welfare spending like Medicare-for-all, and wants to abolish ICE. And abroad, El-Sayed supports a full arms embargo on Israel.
Platforms like El-Sayed’s had already triumphed in several deep blue states and cities. But Michigan is a classic swing state that voted for Trump in two of the past three presidential elections. So El-Sayed’s nomination tested whether a progressive as bold as he could actually win in this environment amid fears from many Democrats — exacerbated by Trump’s 2024 win — that the party urgently needed to move in the opposite direction. And despite the last-minute twist with Stevens endorsing his opponent, El-Sayed did win.
He was, of course, helped by a nationwide blue wave that benefited Democrats across the country. Critics argued that, considering that wave, El-Sayed’s performance was not all that impressive, with his winning margin likely falling short of other candidates in (until now) redder territory.
But whatever the margin, a win is a win, and El-Sayed is now headed to the Senate as one of the most high-profile and influential figures in movement politics.
How El-Sayed won
El-Sayed’s victory has been a long time coming. A Rhodes scholar, epidemiology professor, and public health administrator, he first ran for office in the 2018 cycle, in the Democratic primary for Michigan governor. He ran as a champion of Medicare-for-all, and earned the support of Sanders and new Democratic star US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
He lost that primary campaign to Gretchen Whitmer, who went on to win two terms as governor. But in the years after that campaign, El-Sayed continued to be an influential voice on the left, hosting podcasts and serving as health director of Wayne County (the Michigan county that includes Detroit).
After the Gaza war broke out, El-Sayed became deeply disillusioned with the Biden administration’s support for Israel, accusing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of perpetrating a genocide. He voted “uncommitted” in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, saying he wanted to send a message to Biden that his vote was in jeopardy for the fall. (El-Sayed ended up endorsing Kamala Harris shortly after Biden quit his reelection campaign.)
But when two-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) unexpectedly announced that he wouldn’t run for reelection in January, El-Sayed decided to throw his hat into the open seat race to succeed him. A three-way contest between El-Sayed, Stevens, and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow took shape; El-Sayed was the candidate favored by the left, Stevens was backed by the Democratic establishment, and McMorrow tried unsuccessfully to find a middle ground between them.
El-Sayed’s candidacy quickly gained nationwide attention as one of several primaries in which left insurgents were battling establishment favorites, emphasizing their criticisms of Israel, hostility to big money corporate donors, and support of Medicare-for-all. Indeed, once Graham Platner quit Maine’s Senate race in July, El-Sayed arguably became the highest-profile left candidate in the country.
In part, that was because AIPAC was showering those tens of millions of dollars on his race. The money was intended to squelch El-Sayed’s candidacy and to back Stevens — a staunch supporter of Israel in the House. But the spending may have backfired by seeming to confirm El-Sayed’s narrative that big money was arrayed against him.
The primary ended up being a squeaker, with El-Sayed beating Stevens by less than 1 percentage point. In the general election, however, he won the backing of top Democrats like the party’s Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, as well as Harris and former President Barack Obama.
There were, however, continuing tensions with Stevens, who had initially endorsed El-Sayed after the primary, but later voiced concerns that he wasn’t doing enough to denounce anti-Semitism from his supporters — and threw her support to Rogers.
But, up against Rogers — a former member of Congress and onetime FBI agent who narrowly lost a race for Michigan’s other US Senate seat in 2024, and who had staunchly defended Trump until belatedly seeking some distance in the campaign’s final weeks — El-Sayed emerged triumphant, boosted by the nationwide Democratic wave.
Beyond making El-Sayed the first Muslim US senator, his victory is significant for another reason: Sanders, the Senate’s left champion, is 85 years old. Now, when it comes time for him to pass the torch to the next generation, he’ll have at least one longtime ally ready to take it.
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