Abdul El-Sayed Faces Islamophobic Attacks in Michigan Senate Race

Michigan Senate Nominee Abdul El-Sayed Faces Islamophobic Attacks in Final Stretch

As the Michigan Senate contest enters its final days, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed is confronting a barrage of bigoted attacks targeting his race and religion, even as his one-time primary opponent attempts to redirect closing arguments toward the topics of Israel and antisemitism, theintercept.com reported.

Bigoted Campaign Tactics Target Democratic Nominee

President Donald Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist,” while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched into a racist rant against Arabs. According to Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a mailer circulated showing El-Sayed’s face placed directly next to the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Faces Searing Anti-Muslim Attacks

“They are running the most bigoted, hateful, Islamophobic campaign I’ve ever seen,” McMorrow told a local TV outlet.

McMorrow, who ran for the Democratic Senate nomination before dropping out prior to the August primary, has pursued a different approach than Rep. Haley Stevens. Stevens, the Democratic primary runner-up, spent the final days of the race painting El-Sayed as an angry antisemite and crossed party lines on Sunday to endorse Republican contender Mike Rogers.

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Republican Opponent and Centrist Defection Shift Campaign Dynamics

Rogers has sought to portray El-Sayed as anti-American, repeatedly trying to tie his opponent to the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers insists the attacks have no connection to faith, though many observers view them otherwise, including Muslim Republicans disturbed by the rhetoric.

As the election draws to a close, Islamophobic rhetoric has taken a backseat to Stevens’s claims of antisemitism—most notably involving a political action committee ad connecting high grocery prices to U.S. spending on Israeli military aid—alongside a personal feud between the former primary opponents. Some of El-Sayed’s allies worry that the Muslim and Arab-baiting attacks will resonate with voters, pointing to a recent poll showing 38 percent of Michigan voters less likely to support a Muslim candidate.

GOP leans into Islamophobic attacks against Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed

Nazita Lajevardi, an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, noted that Islamophobia remains a tried-and-true strategy for garnering support and swaying a vote. Political discrimination can mobilize people into action, she observed.

Dearborn Organizers Seek First Muslim US Senator

Michigan’s Muslim and Arab organizers have pushed back against the rhetoric. In interviews, leaders in Dearborn’s Arab American community described widespread enthusiasm for electing the nation’s first Muslim U.S. senator.

Mo Amer: Abdul El-Sayed Is Defying Islamophobic Attacks with Charisma | The Daily Show

“It very much feels like when President Obama was running and his whole campaign was around like hope. That’s what it feels like,” Layla Elabed, the organizing director at Arab Americans for Progress, told theintercept.com on October 8.

Elabed, sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was a key organizer in the Uncommitted movement, which urged Michigan voters to withhold support from Joe Biden during the 2024 primary to protest his stance on Israel’s war in Gaza. Her current group is an evolution of that effort, knocking on doors to turn out support for El-Sayed and other candidates.

US midterms: Trump escalates anti-Muslim attacks against Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed

“Abdul has been able to really take a stand on all the issues that were really important to anti-war voters and anti-genocide voters,” Elabed said. “It’s not a coincidence that that same coalition, that same base of Democratic voters are now all coming out to support us.”

Fundraising Records and Political Fallout

The Arab American Political Action Committee also endorsed El-Sayed. Its president, Osama Siblani, noted widespread enthusiasm in Dearborn and compared El-Sayed’s potential victory to John F. Kennedy’s election as the first Catholic president.

“First of all, he’s qualified. Second of all, he’s saying the right things, he has a good agenda,” Siblani said. “His opponent is an asshole. In addition to all of this, he is breaking the ceiling for our community and for other communities. That is a plus.”

Stevens’s decision to pull her endorsement and back the Republican campaign appeared to galvanize El-Sayed’s base, helping his campaign secure a one-day fundraising record on Sunday.