WASHINGTON — Democrat Abdul El-Sayed pulled off a stunning defeat over Republican Mike Rogers in the crucial Michigan Senate contest, shattering conventional wisdom that a hard-left candidate couldn’t win a purple battleground.
El-Sayed is now the first Muslim elected to the Senate in US history.
“Michigan, we did it,” El-Sayed said at a victory party in Detroit.
“I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan.”
El-Sayed led Rogers 52-46% when AP called the race at 2:27 AM.
The Michigan Senate seat, vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), had widely been seen as necessary to Democrats’ chances of reclaiming the upper chamber.
El-Sayed ran to the far left on a platform of ending the current health insurance system in favor of universal Medicare for All coverage, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), dramatically taxing the rich and cutting off military aid to Israel.
He’s been noncommittal about backing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to lead the Democrats, preferring Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) instead.
“The current minority leader has given all of us ample reason to question whether or not he would be our best bet heading into a cycle where we might have the majority, and I think there’s absolutely room for change,” El-Sayed told The Post in August.
“A vote is a choice between two or more options. I don’t know what other options are. If it happened to be a guy named John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, or Chuck Schumer, well then, I’d make a different decision,” the lefty Democrat added.
El-Sayed had emerged politically bruised from a grueling three-way primary in August. During that primary contest, he courted the far-left by stumping with controversial streamer Hasan Piker and other lefty figures.
He also made his opposition to Israel a top issue against primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), a self-described Zionist and comparatively moderate Democrat. El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel alienated Jewish Democrats, whom Rogers worked to win over.
Two days before the election, Stevens roiled the race by making a surprise endorsement of Rogers, joining him at a church in Detroit and publicly ripping into El-Sayed.
She had been under pressure from her mom and fiancé to back Rogers. But one of the driving forces behind that decision was El-Sayed’s failure to demand that a controversial ad by Cenk Uygur be taken down, as well as her frustration over being cut out of a unity event with him.
“Our Democratic nominee for US Senate, Abdul, said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he’s right,” Stevens said in a video endorsement of Rogers.
“And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign. I do not stand with Hasan Piker.“
The showdown between Rogers and El-Sayed got nasty at times due to the high stakes of the contest, with the balance of power in the Senate on the line. Rogers frequently accused El-Sayed of being a threat to national security.
The former House Intelligence Committee boss highlighted connections between members of El-Sayed’s family and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed’s biological mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which was designated a terrorist group in 2004 for supporting Al Qaeda and Hamas.
El-Sayed noted that he was raised by his American stepmother and denounced groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
But he also took heat for various comments he made, such as his refusal to say that Iran is more of a threat to the US than Israel and leaked audio of him sounding nervous about commenting on the death of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for fear of alienating his voters.
Additionally, El-Sayed refused to disavow Piker, who said “America deserved 9/11” among other vile remarks, which the Democratic hopeful denounced while stumping with the streamer.
At times, he worked to fashion his views as a lefty version of “America first” foreign policy philosophy and voiced frustration that his name and Muslim faith were a political impediment. Still, he boasted that he’d “smoke” Rogers by seven points.
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El-Sayed returned fire on Rogers almost just as brutally, accusing him of being bought and paid for, knocking his ownership of a “yacht,” trying to cast him as a carpetbagger, a stooge to President Trump, and champion of a surveillance state.
Although he described himself as a capitalist and was never officially a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he was backed by prominent DSA figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
AOC said in October that an El-Sayed victory would break the “entire political calculus in America.”
“If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere,” she said.
