Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s open US Senate seat, becoming the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate.
The Daily Mirror reported, citing Reuters, that El-Sayed took the seat on Tuesday according to US media projections, holding it for the Democrats in a contest central to the party’s fight for control of the chamber.
El-Sayed, 42, is a former public health official who had never held elected office. He is the son of Egyptian immigrants and served as health director for Wayne County, Michigan’s most populous county. He ran on lowering costs for working families, reducing corporate money in politics, and Medicare for All — a government-funded universal healthcare programme championed by the party’s progressive wing. Hiru News reported that he was backed by progressive figures including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The seat and the margin
The seat was open rather than defended: two-term Democratic Senator Gary Peters retired, and his departure gave Republicans a target they ultimately failed to take. His opponent, Mike Rogers, 63, is a former congressman and FBI agent who entered the race with strong backing from President Donald Trump and the national Republican Party.
Republicans held the Senate 53–47 going into Tuesday’s elections, with Democrats needing a net gain of four seats for control. Neither filing this desk has seen gives a vote margin or percentage for the Michigan result.
The race was the most expensive single contest of the midterms. As this desk reported on Tuesday, spending on it was estimated at $333 million, with outside groups putting about $169 million behind Rogers and $94 million behind El-Sayed — a roughly two-to-one advantage that did not decide the seat. In his victory speech, El-Sayed said: “We showed that in a battle between the money and the many that the many can win.”
A campaign fought over his religion
Rogers sought to cast El-Sayed as a radical sympathetic to Islamic extremism, through alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Daily Mirror records that El-Sayed denies those claims and that they remain unsupported by evidence; Democrats said the attacks relied on Islamophobic tropes.
Al Jazeera reported that Trump and Vice President JD Vance directed what it described as Islamophobic and racially charged rhetoric at El-Sayed through the campaign, including mocking his name and the way he prays.
El-Sayed addressed that directly on winning: “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.”
He also turned to the Vice President, who as President of the Senate will administer his oath: “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’.”
Rogers also worked to win over Jewish voters uneasy with El-Sayed’s opposition to US military aid for Israel and his description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated for the Democratic nomination, backed Rogers in the closing days.
Why Rogers lost ground
Reuters reports that Rogers struggled to overcome voter concern about the economy and Trump’s low approval ratings. In the closing weeks he broke with the President on two issues — the war in Iran and the US trade dispute with Canada — arguing that ending both was necessary to bring costs down for businesses and consumers.
That is notable given what followed. A day after the vote, Vice President Vance publicly blamed the Iran war for his party’s defeat, in terms this desk reports separately. Rogers had made a version of that argument while the campaign was still running.
El-Sayed’s win formed part of a night in which Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress. Hiru News reported that the result is expected to strengthen the party’s left wing ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
Not reported
None of the three filings gives the final vote tally, turnout, or the exact date of the swearing-in beyond January. No comment from Rogers or from the White House on the Michigan result appears in any of them.
