{"id":674594,"date":"2026-11-04T10:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T10:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/674594\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T10:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T10:04:10","slug":"abdul-el-sayed-wins-in-high-profile-michigan-race-making-history-as-first-ever-muslim-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/674594\/","title":{"rendered":"Abdul El-Sayed wins in high-profile Michigan race, making history as first-ever Muslim senator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DEMOCRAT ABDUL EL-SAYED has been elected in the high-profile battle for Michigan\u2019s Senate, becoming the first Muslim elected to the upper chamber of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed\u2019s defeat of Mike Rogers in the critical swing state comes following a candidature that bucked his party\u2019s establishment and led to the defection of his own primary opponent before election day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMichigan, we did it!\u201d El-Sayed said in a speech at his election headquarters in Detroit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am so proud and honoured to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@TheJournalVideo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Journal<\/a> \/ YouTube<\/p>\n<p>A medical doctor educated at Columbia, the 42-year-old former health official campaigned on a platform of affordability, sensible foreign policy and lower healthcare costs.<\/p>\n<p>He is an outspoken critic of the US and Israel\u2019s war in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents, who include US President Donald Trump, regularly engaged in Islamophobia during the campaign, with Trump repeatedly labelling El-Sayed a \u201cjihadist\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate race in Michigan was among the most watched both nationally and internationally.<\/p>\n<p>It exploded further when Democrat congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost out on the Democratic nomination for Senate,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejournal.ie\/haley-stevens-mike-rogers-7212275-Nov2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">withdrew her backing of El-Sayed<\/a> two days before election day and said she would be supporting Republican candidate Rogers.<\/p>\n<p>The decision drew fury from many Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Stevens had cited El-Sayed\u2019s position on Israel and personal conflicts with her party\u2019s candidate as her reasoning to remove herself from his campaign. In the aftermath, a number of her staffers \u2013 including her chief of staff \u2013 said they would be stepping away from their roles.<\/p>\n<p>Additional reporting by AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEMOCRAT ABDUL EL-SAYED has been elected in the high-profile battle for Michigan\u2019s Senate, becoming the first Muslim elected&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[241655,15323,4644,42,22289,95732,43,40,38,41,39,33174],"class_list":["post-674594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abdul-el-sayed","tag-democrats","tag-elections","tag-headlines","tag-michigan","tag-mike-rogers","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}