Abdul El-Sayed becomes first Muslim elected to US Senate, winning in Michigan
Pro-Palestinian candidates defeated pro-Israel rivals up and down the ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections, overcoming tens of millions of dollars in spending by groups like Aipac, according to the Guardian’s analysis of the results. The analysis argued the outcome amounted to a rejection of the US-Israel relationship itself — one that even President Donald Trump appeared to recognize as a political liability.
Trump suggested on election morning that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it.” The remark was condemned across the board, the analysis reported: pro-Palestinian advocates dismissed it as “desperate,” while pro-Israel advocates called it “unserious.”
The proposal would replace nearly $4bn in annual military aid with arms sales — a swap that, in the analysis’s judgment, signaled little practical change, since the funding would continue and become harder to track. But the analysis read the announcement as a notable acknowledgment of just how much support for Israel has “tanked” among US voters against the backdrop of the latest war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and been widely described as a genocide. That war, the analysis said, has reshaped US politics in ways unthinkable just three years ago.
Come January, the House will include an army doctor who went on a medical mission to Gaza; a lawyer who was fired by her firm over a blogpost criticizing Israel’s war; a Jewish lawmaker who was recently detained by Israeli forces while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank; and a community organizer who participated in a pro-Palestinian student encampment and scored one of the primary season’s most stunning upsets, in the analysis’s account, under the banner “babies, not bombs.”
Pro-Palestinian candidates — including Palestinian Americans — won downballot races as well. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim elected to the US Senate after a campaign in which Aipac spent more than $40m in an effort to defeat him and which, the analysis said, saw unprecedented levels of Islamophobic rhetoric and bigotry. The victories, the analysis argued, also marked a significant rejection of the narrative — advanced relentlessly by pro-Israel voices and the Trump administration over the last three years — that criticism of Israel is, by default, antisemitic.
“They try to call you hateful if you believe that Palestinian kids should get to grow up in the land of their forefathers without being murdered by our tax dollars,” El-Sayed said during his acceptance speech, noting he had come under enormous pressure over his support for Palestinians. “If you believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self determination, that’s not hate, it’s love.”
El-Sayed won a majority of Jewish voters in Michigan, according to exit polls. J Street said its polling found that 72% of Jewish voters chose Democrats on Tuesday, even though the Republican party increased its share of the Jewish vote from 2024. The analysis noted the results cut against warnings that Jewish voters would leave the Democratic party en masse over its shifts on Israel.
“The old bipartisan consensus on Israel is over,” said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action. Without that consensus in place, the analysis observed, the next Congress could push measures ranging from an arms embargo on Israel to sanctions against violent settlers and officials — though Trump would retain veto power to block them.
Aipac poured tens of millions of dollars into a failed attempt to reverse Israel’s collapsing standing among US voters, the analysis found. Last month, the group acknowledged that its open support was hurting pro-Israel candidates more than it helped them and announced it would stop making direct endorsements and contributions — which the analysis called a remarkable admission, even if one with little practical consequence.
The vote also registered, in the analysis’s account, as a rejection of Trump’s war in Iran — something even JD Vance said on Wednesday was “obvious to almost everyone.” Foreign policy issues rarely determine US elections, the analysis noted, until they have a direct effect on Americans’ lives at home. “Americans were reminded of the failures of the Iran war with every visit to the gas station and grocery store,” said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC. “Israel is a central piece of that story.”
The Democratic party does not emerge unified on Israel and Palestine, or in opposition to foreign wars. For decades, the party has “excluded or marginalized anyone whose progressive values extend to support for Palestine,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “American voters, organizers, and a cohort of enormously talented candidates came together and kicked the door down,” she said.
Matt Duss, executive vice-president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy aide to Senator Bernie Sanders, said Democrats must now seize the opportunity to become the party opposed to war. “Trump ran and won as an anti-war candidate in 2024, because unfortunately Democrats left that lane wide open for him,” he said. “The question is: will Democrats finally get it? Will they finally realize that Americans are tired of war and want a new foreign policy?”