El-Sayed will be the first Muslim American to serve in the Senate
Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, according to an Associated Press race call that NPR reported on November 4, 2026, defeating former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers. The 42-year-old former public health official will be the first Muslim American to serve in the Senate, a result NPR called a crucial victory in Democrats’ quest to win back the Senate majority. Rogers had lost his first bid for the Senate in 2024.
NPR called the contest one of the most closely watched elections in the U.S. and said the race tested how “an antiestablishment candidate on the left” would fare in a perennial Midwest battleground.
El-Sayed is a Michigan native who ran the health departments in Wayne County and the city of Detroit. He first arrived on the political stage in 2018 with an unsuccessful bid for governor.
El-Sayed galvanized young and infrequent voters by harnessing anger over the cost of living and corruption. He focused on passing single-payer health care and curbing the influence of corporate money in politics. NPR described El-Sayed as not a democratic socialist, unlike several candidates whose insurgent campaigns gained traction in primaries this cycle, though his campaign was backed by some of the biggest stars on the political left.
During the campaign, El-Sayed criticized Rogers and other Republicans, including President Trump, for targeting him with Islamophobic rhetoric. Trump endorsed Rogers early in the campaign. NPR reported that Rogers has embraced some of Trump’s false claims about widespread election fraud despite previously condemning them, including after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. As November neared, Rogers tried to distance himself from some of the president’s policies, including the war in Iran.
In the Democratic primary, El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens by about 1 percentage point despite Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and retiring Sen. Gary Peters backing Stevens.
NPR reported that El-Sayed’s positions on Israel alienated some Jewish voters, citing his comments after a truck-ramming attack at a synagogue preschool in metro Detroit, for which he later offered an apology, and his campaigning during the primary with Hasan Piker, whom NPR described as a controversial left-wing streamer. NPR called the primary contest heated and said those dynamics turned it into “a stand-in for many of the broader debates fueling the direction of the Democratic Party after two years in the political wilderness.”
In the general election’s closing days, Stevens reversed course and announced she was endorsing Rogers, after initially saying she would support the Democratic ticket. Whitmer and Peters had backed Stevens in the primary. Polls after the primary showed a tight race with Rogers, despite Democrats having held the Senate seat since 1979.
NPR reported that El-Sayed has signaled that he intends to be a prominent voice, especially given Michigan’s prime position in the presidential nominating process in 2028. NPR described the development as one unfolding “as Democrats wrestle with their party’s identity.” The result gives Democrats a senator who made single-payer health care and curbing corporate money central to his campaign while the party continues its effort to regain the Senate majority.