{"id":3849,"date":"2026-11-05T11:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T06:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3849"},"modified":"2026-11-05T11:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T06:03:44","slug":"politics-of-fear-failed-to-stop-el-sayeds-historic-senate-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3849","title":{"rendered":"Politics of fear failed to stop El Sayed’s historic Senate win"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The US president repeatedly branded him a jihadist. His Republican opponent questioned his loyalty to America. Campaign mailers suggested he had ties to terrorists and warned that, if elected, he would bring sharia law to Michigan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Abdul El Sayed could make history as the first Muslim elected to the US \u200bSenate, he endured what critics called one of the most overtly Islamophobic campaigns in modern US politics.<\/p>\n

He won anyway. El Sayed cast his victory in Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections<\/a> as a rebuke to such rhetoric, \u200caccusing his Republican opponent Mike Rogers of running what he called a historically ugly, hate-based campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou chose hate, and Michigan chose hope,\u201d El Sayed said in his victory speech.<\/p>\n

The attacks were a defining feature of the race, stirring safety concerns among residents in and around Dearborn, home to one of the nation\u2019s largest Arab American communities, local officials and residents said this week.<\/p>\n

El Sayed, 42, a Michigan-born Egyptian American who has a medical degree and formerly served as Detroit\u2019s health director, ran as a progressive focused on healthcare and the cost of living.<\/p>\n

David Kolar, a 32-year-old music \u200bteacher, said the focus on El Sayed\u2019s faith recalled the backlash Muslims faced after the September 11, 2001, attacks, a period he believed the country had left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have freedom of religion, and if he is of \u200bthe Muslim faith, so be it,\u201d Kolar said after casting his ballot for El Sayed in the Detroit suburb of Warren.<\/p>\n

Rogers said his objections to El Sayed were ideological, not religious. Yet \u2060he portrayed him as a national security threat and campaigned alongside Republicans who went further.<\/p>\n

Foremost among them was President Donald Trump, who labelled El Sayed a terrorist and compared him to the September 11 hijackers.<\/p>\n

Rogers appeared with Senator John Kennedy, \u200ba Louisiana Republican who said El Sayed sleeps \u201cin a bin Laden jersey,\u201d and with Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, when he called El Sayed a \u201cjihadist leprechaun\u201d and warned Americans would die if he won.<\/p>\n

The attacks stood out not only for their severity \u200bbut for how readily prominent Republicans embraced them, said Nazita Lajevardi, an associate professor at the University of Michigan who studies the intersection of politics, race and religion.<\/p>\n

Unlike after September 11 or during Trump\u2019s first-term Muslim ban, she said, there was little pushback from Republican party elites.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most egregious and most bigoted Islamophobic campaign I have seen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing is not just hostility, racism and bigotry from the president \u2026 but you\u2019re seeing it from rank-and-file members of the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Anatomy of an attack campaign<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Led by Trump, Republicans portrayed Democratic \u200bcandidates as radical, un-American and even communist throughout the campaign.<\/p>\n

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was derided in Texas as \u201cTalafreako\u201d over his views on gender and sexuality.<\/p>\n

In Ohio, ads weaponised Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton\u2019s account of surviving sexual \u200bassault in her youth.<\/p>\n

Voters appeared far more concerned with pocketbook issues than attacks, however, in an election season when Democrats, including Talarico and Acton, chalked up sweeping wins.<\/p>\n

Still, perhaps no campaign leaned into identity politics as heavily as the Michigan Senate race.<\/p>\n

Republicans sought to \u200clink El Sayed to \u2060the Muslim Brotherhood using decade-old writings on political change in Egypt and social media posts by his half-sister.<\/p>\n

The United States designated some Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations this year.<\/p>\n

El Sayed disavowed the group and denied any association, and no evidence has emerged linking him to it.<\/p>\n

Republicans also seized on El Sayed\u2019s response to the March attack on Michigan\u2019s Temple Israel synagogue.<\/p>\n

In a statement denouncing the violence, he said \u201churt people hurt people,\u201d drawing anger from some Jewish leaders who criticised the remark as rationalising antisemitic violence.<\/p>\n

He later apologised, saying that his comments may have been misconstrued and that \u201cit wasn\u2019t the time for context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogers\u2019 allies invoked the episode through the campaign\u2019s final hours. On the eve of the election, the Michigan Republican Party held a \u200bpress conference featuring Jewish and Black community leaders opposed \u200bto El Sayed beside a large red sign accusing him \u2060of offering \u201cSAFE HARBOR TO TERRORISTS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by Reuters to substantiate the claim, party communications director Ted Goodman pointed to the \u201churt people hurt people\u201d remark, which he said amounted to justifying a terrorist attack against children.<\/p>\n

The argument resonated with some voters.<\/p>\n

Five of roughly 30 people Reuters interviewed in the Detroit area said El Sayed\u2019s Muslim faith or perceived links to extremism strongly influenced \u200btheir vote for Rogers.<\/p>\n

Robin Cook, 73, was one of them. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s a true American,\u201d he said of El Sayed. \u201cI don\u2019t trust him.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Dearborn pushes back<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Most voters interviewed dismissed the \u200battacks as desperate and a \u2060distraction from their economic concerns.<\/p>\n

Non-Muslims stressed that Muslims and Arab Americans were woven into their daily lives, pointing to friends, neighbours, colleagues and physicians in their communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up around all nationalities,\u201d said Pamela Johnson, a 72-year-old Catholic, after voting for El Sayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all matter, regardless of color, race or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dearborn residents said the rhetoric carried real-world consequences, fueling safety fears.<\/p>\n

Imad Soofi, a business owner who immigrated from Yemen two decades ago, said he had seen a rise in anti-Muslim hostility since Trump began targeting El Sayed, \u2060including remarks directed \u200bat women wearing hijabs in public.<\/p>\n

A three-time Trump voter, Soofi, 49, said he might have backed Rogers had the candidate distanced himself from Trump\u2019s \u200banti-Muslim rhetoric. Instead, he voted for El Sayed.<\/p>\n

Alabas Farhat, who represents parts of Dearborn and Detroit in the Michigan House, said the campaign recycled anti-Muslim tropes Arab Americans in the region had encountered for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been this constant questioning of how American can you be as a Muslim? How American \u200bcan you be as an Arab American?\u201d Farhat said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happens, but time and again, we show how American we are.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US president repeatedly branded him a jihadist. His Republican opponent questioned his loyalty to America. Campaign mailers suggested he had ties to terrorists and warned that, if elected, he would bring sharia law to Michigan. Before Abdul El Sayed could make history as the first Muslim elected to the US \u200bSenate, he endured what critics called one of the most overtly Islamophobic campaigns in modern US politics. He won anyway. El Sayed cast his victory in Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections as a rebuke to such rhetoric, \u200caccusing his Republican opponent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}