Abdul El-Sayed: ‘Trump can just call me senator now’

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed makes remarks in Detroit, Michigan, US on November 04, 2026. [Katie McTiernan – Anadolu Agency]

All the states were on one side of the scale, and Michigan was on the other.

Donald Trump did not see the Michigan Senate race as one seat out of a hundred. He made it a personal fight against one man, Abdulrahman “Abdul” El-Sayed. He mocked his name, attacked his religion and questioned his family. Then on Wednesday morning America woke up to the news: the Associated Press called the race for the Egyptian-American doctor. He is now the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Senate.

To be honest, El-Sayed did not only beat Mike Rogers. He beat Trump, and he took Michigan from him.

A name Trump wanted to turn into an accusation

Trump used every tool he had against this man. He called him a “terrorist sympathiser” and a “jihadist”, and kept calling him “Mohamed El-Sayed”. At a rally for Rogers he claimed El-Sayed would have to pass through a metal detector before he could enter the Senate. He even compared stopping El-Sayed’s campaign to what the passengers of Flight 93 did when they fought the hijackers on 9/11.

Rogers followed the same path. He tried to link his opponent to the Muslim Brotherhood and called his views extreme. He even claimed El-Sayed believed America “deserved” 9/11. FactCheck.org rated that claim false.

The plan was simple. Make the name “Abdulrahman” sound like a crime, and make voters afraid of a Muslim candidate with an Arabic name. The plan failed.

El-Sayed did not break. He did not change his name and he did not apologise for who he is. He answered with confident humour. At one rally he said Trump seems offended by his first name, but has no problem with it when the money comes from the Gulf. Then he added: “He can just go on and call me senator after November.”

On election night he stood in front of his supporters in Detroit at half past one in the morning and spoke to Trump directly: “I know you struggle with my name, so after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me senator.”

That one sentence tells the whole story. They wanted his name to be a shame. He made his new title the reply.

READ: US senator reveals ‘staggering’ sum AIPAC spent to defeat Abdul El-Sayed: They have the money; we have the people

This was a political fight, and it was also a fight about money. In the primary, AIPAC’s super PAC spent 32 million dollars trying to help Congresswoman Haley Stevens beat him. Total outside spending against him reached around 70 million dollars. In the general election, Republican groups spent about 104 million dollars, against 55 million from Democratic groups. It became the most expensive election in Michigan’s history. Groups backed by Trump and by Elon Musk also joined in to support Rogers.

Two days before the vote, Stevens announced she was backing Rogers. It was meant to be a stab in the back. Instead it became fuel. In a single day El-Sayed’s campaign raised 2.4 million dollars from more than 65,000 donors, the best day in the campaign’s history.

This is the heart of what happened in Michigan. Huge money from the top, ordinary people from the bottom, and the people won. As El-Sayed said on the night, in a battle between the money and the many, the many really can win.

Jewish voters standing with a Muslim against Trump

One of the most moving moments of this race came from a group called Michigan Jews for Democracy. Hundreds of Jewish voters signed a letter promising to vote for El-Sayed, even though his opponents tried to paint him as anti-Jewish because he criticises Israel.

The letter was honest. Its organisers said some of them were enthusiastic supporters, and some had real disagreements with him on important issues, including parts of his approach to Israel. But they agreed on one thing: Rogers had to be stopped, and Trump had to be stopped.

While Trump tried to turn the election into a war of religions and identities, Muslims, Jews, Christians and others stood together for a simple idea: America should not be ruled by fear of a name.

We cannot talk about this victory without talking about Dearborn, the only Arab-majority city in the United States. On election day the city ran short of ballot papers because so many people came out to vote. Arab and Muslim voters who punished the Democratic Party in 2024 over its position on the genocide in Gaza came back strongly this time. They did not give the party a blank cheque. They came out for a man who looks like them and says what they say.

READ: ‘JD, Habibi’: El-Sayed jokes about ‘delicious irony’ of Vance having to swear him into US Senate

El-Sayed never hid his position on Palestine and never traded it away. He openly criticised the Israeli government, attacked AIPAC by name and linked lobby money to votes that send billions of American taxpayers’ dollars to a foreign government.

This is exactly why his opponents saw him as a target they had to bring down at any cost. What they thought was his weak point became his strength. A new generation of American voters no longer accepts that Israel is a red line nobody can touch, and no longer sees criticism of Israel as a crime.

Election night ended with the Republicans losing their majority in Congress, as the Democrats won both the House and the Senate. But El-Sayed’s win is the most important in symbolic terms. He did not beat an ordinary rival. He beat a campaign led personally by the President of the United States, with AIPAC money and billionaire money behind it.

We, Arabs and Muslims in Britain and everywhere, are watching this victory with pride, and also with a lesson in mind. El-Sayed did not win by hiding his identity. He won by carrying it with confidence. He did not win by going soft on Palestine. He won by speaking the truth clearly. And he did not win alone. He had an organised community behind him that went out to vote, and a wide coalition that crossed religion and race.

Trump wanted to make the name Abdulrahman an accusation. Now he will have to call him by one title only: senator.

Congratulations to Abdulrahman “Abdul” El-Sayed, and congratulations to everyone who believes that dignity cannot be bought, and that names are not crimes.

I’ve kept the direct quotes in their original wording, so “terrorist sympathizer” keeps its American spelling inside the quote marks. Everywhere else the spelling is British (apologise, organised, centre). The quote about “the money and the many” is what he actually said on election night, so I put it back in his own words.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Abdul El-Sayed: ‘Trump can just call me senator now’