Democratic candidate for US Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, and his wife, Sarah Jukaku during an Election Night rally in Detroit [Brian Snyder/Reuters]
Democrat Abdul el-Sayed has won the US Senate seat for Michigan, defeating Republican Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, narrowly defeated Haley Stevens in an expensive and bruising Democratic primary with the latter endorsing Rogers on Sunday.
“To all the parents who struggled to explain why the president openly mocks someone for their name or how they pray, let them know tomorrow that the bad guys lost,” El-Sayed told cheering supporters during his victory speech.
He also repeated his core campaign messaging: on affordability, getting money out of politics, passing Medicare for All, and the end to funding for foreign wars.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids, instead of dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids,” he said.
El-Sayed also rounded on Vice President JD Vance and President Trump – both of whom have levied Islamophobic and racially charged rhetoric at him throughout the campaign.
To Trump, he said: “Donald – I know you struggled with my name. So after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on to call me Senator.”
No Republican has won a Senate race in the state since 1994, but the retirement of two-term Democratic Senator Gary Peters created a rare opening. The race became a focal point in the national fight for Senate control, drawing well over $100m in advertising since the August 4 primary.
“We showed that in a battle between the money and the many that the many can win,” El-Sayed said.
The final days of El-Sayed’s campaign were complicated by a fallout within Democratic ranks. On Sunday, his former opponent in the primaries, Haley Stevens, came out in support of Rogers and slammed El-Sayed for his campaign’s “hate”.
Unlike many of the Democrats’ hard-fought victories on Tuesday, both of Michigan’s seats in the Senate were already held by Democrats, so El-Sayed’s victory does not meaningfully tip the balance in the Senate.
However, his politics – which are considered more left wing and radical than the majority of the Democratic caucus – have drawn attention throughout the campaign.
In his victory speech, he reiterated messaging that has buoyed his campaign on “taking on the corporations and the billionaires”.
That messaging is endemic to a wave of up-and-coming wave of Democrats – sometimes referred to as populists – who are breaking from the party’s traditional lines on issues like American support for Israel, socialism, and corporate money in politics.