Abdul El-Sayed
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed will defeat Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate race Tuesday, projects Decision Desk.
The candidates competed for an open seat after Democrat Sen. Gary Peters announced last year he would not run for reelection.
El-Sayed, a Michigan native who will become the first Muslim member of the U.S. Senate, earned an M.D. from Columbia University and a doctorate in public health at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, though he did not pursue residency and therefore is not licensed to practice medicine. Rogers and other Republicans raised this history when refusing to refer to him as a doctor. He previously led the Detroit Health Department and the Wayne County Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services.
WATCH:
El-Sayed overcame a torrent of attacks in the final days of the campaign.
Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the August Democrat primary, endorsed Rogers on Sunday, suggesting El-Sayed’s campaign was tied to “hate.” After Stevens criticized his failure to condemn a supportive ad that was widely seen as antisemitic, El-Sayed urged Stevens not to attend any of his campaign’s events.
Stevens mentioned Hasan Piker, a far-left influencer “with a history of rhetoric that sanitizes violence and denigrates Jewish people,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. El-Sayed had repeatedly appeared with Piker at campaign events.
El-Sayed, who will be the first Muslim U.S. senator, insisted that Israel is not America’s ally, condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” and promised to vote against all military funding and weapons for Israel.
Earlier in the campaign, Republicans claimed El-Sayed had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, citing statements from his half-sister and a letter El-Sayed signed supporting the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in 2012, though the Democrat disavowed the organization. Republicans also faulted El-Sayed for being part of the Democratic Socialists of America orbit, though El-Sayed did not join the DSA and was not endorsed by the organization.
While El-Sayed neither joined the Democratic Socialists of America nor received an endorsement from the DSA, he has operated in the DSA orbit for some time.
Though he said he thinks of himself “as a capitalist,” he has supported DSA policies such as “Medicare for All,” alterations to the Supreme Court, retiring the filibuster, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. El-Sayed also spoke at DSA events between 2017 and 2020, Fox News reported. His campaign website touts endorsements from DSA member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and the godfather of socialist politics in America, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
El-Sayed also faced criticism over 2020 comments in which he called for defunding the police. During the campaign, he stated that he “never, never called for defunding,” but videos from 2020 and 2021 reveal him repeatedly endorsing the defunding effort.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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[ H/T WorldNetDaily ]
