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Abdul El-Sayed makes history as the first Muslim elected to the US Senate

4 November 2026 · Algeria Now

Abdul El-Sayed makes history as the first Muslim elected to the US Senate — Photo : Conlan Houston / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

DETROIT — Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat who has called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide, has won Michigan’s open seat in the US Senate, becoming the first Muslim ever elected to the upper chamber of Congress.

The 42-year-old son of Egyptian immigrants defeated Republican Mike Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in Tuesday’s midterm elections, keeping in Democratic hands the seat left vacant by the retirement of Senator Gary Peters. His victory came on a night when Democrats took control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Raised in suburban Detroit, El-Sayed earned a medical degree from Columbia University, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and taught epidemiology before leading public health efforts in Detroit and Wayne County. He ran on a progressive platform: universal public health insurance, higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans and limits on corporate money in politics.

His stance on Palestine set him apart. He argued that US military aid to Israel should instead pay for schools and health care at home, and he became a prime target of pro-Israel groups, which spent some 30 million dollars against him in the Democratic primary alone. The campaign was also marked by Islamophobic attacks from President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

“We don’t want our money sent to do apartheid or genocide or war,” he told supporters on election night.

Michigan is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the United States, and Mr Trump carried the state by two points in 2024. El-Sayed’s victory there is seen as a breakthrough for the left wing of the Democratic Party, and as a sign that open criticism of Israeli policy can now win in a key American swing state.

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