Abdul El-Sayed, Democrat, is projected to win the Michigan Senate Race and is set to make history as the first Muslim in the U.S. Senate, according to the Associated Press.
El-Sayed’s historic win unfolds against a rise in Islamophobia, according to civil rights groups. Historically, Muslims have had limited representation in Congress, which has long had members who identify as Christian. Fewer than ten Muslims have served in Congress. There are more than 250 elected Muslim officials, the majority of whom are men, across the U.S., according to an analysis by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
A former public health official, Sayed ran his campaign in part on expanding healthcare for all to include no-premium healthcare coverage under Medicare and banning political donations from corporations. Born in Southeast Michigan, his father, Mohamed, and mother, Fatten Elkomy, are Egyptian immigrants. He was raised by his father and stepmother, Jackie, a Michigan native.
El-Sayed has faced criticism over repeated false claims by his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, and his Republican surrogates that he and his family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group founded in Egypt with branches in multiple countries that are designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S.
He has consistently denied ties to the group and has disavowed them. He has also vociferously questioned the racial motives of those who have tried to tie him to the group simply because he is Egyptian with an Arabic name.
Over the summer, El-Sayed became the first Muslim candidate to earn a major political party nomination for the U.S. Senate after winning the Democratic primary.
Throughout his campaign, El-Sayed was targeted by vitriolic and racist rhetoric and faced anti-Muslim hate, particularly on social media. Hateful attacks against him “jumped twentyfold” after the primary, according to a report released in August by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate.
President Trump and other Republicans, including Rogers, have also launched and inflamed Islamophobic rhetoric against El-Sayed, including a falsehood that he is a “terrorist” and mocking his name.
When asked last month how he handles Islamophobic and racist attacks, including insults about his identity, El-Sayed said, “I’m not in the business of defending myself.”
“It’s not about me. It’s about a whole lot of folks whose lives have been made so much worse because of politics and hate and racism that affects communities in structural ways,” El-Sayed said. “Say whatever you want to say about my name. Say whatever you want to say about my faith. At the end of the day, it’s a distraction.”
