Abdul el-Sayed becomes first Muslim-American to win Michigan Senate primary

Public health professional Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary for the Michigan Senate race on Tuesday night, defeating rival Haley Stevens, adding to the victories of progressive, pro-Palestinian candidates across the country. He will face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in the general election in November in a race that could prove crucial to Democratic hopes of taking back the Senate.

Sayed is the latest Arab-American and Muslim-American to win a major political race, and made his criticism of Israel and US foreign policy in the region a significant part of his campaign in the state, which has a large Arab community.

Sayed received 48.5% of the vote to Stevens' 47.5%, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday, constituting a smaller margin than was predicted by pre-election polls. Stevens congratulated Sayed on Wednesday and offered him her "full support" in November, she wrote on X.

Michigan is a swing state that was won by US President Donald Trump in 2024 and former President Joe Biden in 2020. The race between Sayed and Rogers is expected to be close, and the winner will replace Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who is retiring.

The victory of Sayed, whose family is reportedly from Alexandria, was widely covered in Arabic-language media.

Who is Sayed?

Sayed, 41, was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs by Egyptian immigrant parents. He studied at the University of Michigan, where he played on the lacrosse team, and received a medical degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Sayed worked at a variety of public health institutions in Michigan before running for the Senate, and has never held elected office.  

Sayed is endorsed by a number of progressive figures, including independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Unlike other rising stars in the Democratic Party's left wing, such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Sayed does not identify as a democratic socialist and has rejected the label, including in an MS NOW interview last week. 

Pro-Palestinian message

Sayed is vocally supportive of the Palestinian cause and critical of both Israeli conduct in the region and US support for the Jewish state. He has accused Israel of carrying out genocide and apartheid against Palestinians. 

Some human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Israel’s B’Tselem, have said Israel’s occupation of the West Bank amounts to apartheid. South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in late 2023 over Israeli conduct in the Gaza war, but the court has yet to make a final determination. Israel rejects both allegations.

Sayed called Israel a “rogue state” at a July debate and accused pro-Israel lobby groups of dictating US foreign policy. 

“For too long, our foreign policy has been handed to us by the likes of the state of Israel and AIPAC,” he said at the time, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

Sayed opposes military aid to Israel as well as to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. He draws a distinction between US aid to Ukraine, saying support for the country against the Russian invasion falls on the “right side of justice,” according to his campaign site. 

He has also criticized Hamas at times. In an April interview with CNN, Sayed called both Israel and Hamas “evil.” 

Sayed held two rallies with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker in April, drawing condemnation from some Democrats in Congress, including Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin. Piker has made a number of controversial remarks on US foreign policy and Israel, once saying the United States "deserved" the Sept. 11 attacks. 

The primary is one of the most expensive this election cycle. The Associated Press reported in July that AIPAC and its affiliates had spent nearly $30 million boosting his challenger Stevens. 

Much of Sayed’s campaign has focused on domestic issues, however, and he has pledged to support higher taxes on the wealthy, efforts to ban corporate money in politics and expanding the Medicare healthcare program to all Americans. 

According to a survey published last week by news nonprofit Bridge Michigan, the economy is the biggest issue for Detroit-area voters, while other state residents identified housing, affordability, healthcare and the Trump administration as major issues. 

Michigan has one of the largest Arab-American communities in the United States, with an estimated population of nearly 300,000.

Iran war 

Sayed is against the Iran war, and called it “dumb and illegal” in a May post on X. He opposes a nuclear-armed Iran, however, saying on his campaign site that the issue should be resolved through diplomacy. 

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet, published audio it said came from a campaign strategy call in which the candidate said he planned to avoid discussing the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad,” the outlet reported him as saying. Sayed called the report a “distraction” in a statement at the time, adding that the recording may have been “illegally and unethically obtained.” 

Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike in late February at the start of the war. Dearborn is a predominantly Arab-American town near Detroit. The local news outlet The Detroit Free Press reported that some mosques in the area mourned Khamenei.

When CNN asked him about the comments in late July, Sayed declined to directly address the allegation, saying Americans should instead be upset that “this president, backed by the prime minister of a foreign government, took us to a war we had no business fighting in.” 

Gaining momentum 

Sayed’s victory follows that of Melat Kiros, a pro-Palestinian lawyer who defeated longtime Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary race for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in June. Earlier that month, three pro-Palestinian progressives endorsed by Mamdani won their Democratic House primaries in New York City. 

Polling suggests support for the Palestinian cause and opposition to Israel are growing in the US, particularly among Democrats. An April poll from Pew Research Center found that 80% of Democrats or people who lean Democrat have an unfavorable view of Israel. The center found that 41% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Israel. In 2022, before the start of the Gaza war, only 53% of Democrats had an unfavorable view of Israel, according to the poll. 

The general election between Sayed and Rogers may be tight. In a late July poll, local pollster EPIC-MRA had Rogers with 46% support to Sayed's 43%.