Anti-Israel El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate race, pledges no money for ‘apartheid, genocide’
In apparent swipe at Israel, Democrat says tax funds should go to kids, ‘rather than dropping bombs’ on other people and their kids; chants of ‘Free Palestine heard during speech
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Democrat Abdul El-Sayed on Wednesday defeated former Republican lawmaker Mike Rogers in a bitter campaign for Michigan’s open Senate seat, making him the first Muslim elected to the upper chamber of Congress.
“Michigan, we did it!” El-Sayed said in a speech at his election headquarters in Detroit.
“My name is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed,” he said, to cheers. “And I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect for the great state of Michigan.”
“You might have noticed that up until now I say ‘Inshallah,’ or ‘God willing’… but tonight we can change that Inshallah to ‘Alhamdulillah,’” or thank God, he said.
“We want our taxes spent here, for schools here, and healthcare here, and infrastructure here. We don’t want our money sent to do apartheid, or genocide, or war,” he said, in an apparent swipe at Israel.
“It shouldn’t be hard to pay your taxes and know that money is going to be spent on you and your kids, rather than dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids,” he added.
Abdul El-Sayed:
We want our taxes spent here, for schools here, and healthcare here, and infrastructure here.
We don't want our money sent to do apartheid, or genocide, or war. pic.twitter.com/k5sbdCyzOb
— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 4, 2026
During his victory speech, chants of “Free Palestine” were heard throughout the crowd.
El-Sayed is among several strongly anti-Israel voices that won their races in the Democratic Party. Support for Israel among Democratic voters has plummeted, especially during the war in Gaza, and even moderate lawmakers are increasingly willing to challenge decades of US support for Israel.
Democrats took both the House of Representatives and Senate in the midterms, with voters repudiating US President Donald Trump, expressing frustrations over high prices, the Iran war, and concerns over government corruption.
The Michigan race was seen as crucial to Democrats’ hope of retaking the chamber. But for many of Michigan’s estimated 105,000 Jewish voters, the campaign was defined instead by El-Sayed’s tumultuous relationship with the community.
The antipathy many Jews felt toward him extended beyond the Democrat’s fierce Israel criticism to also encompass his statements about attacks targeting the state’s Jewish community and his early campaigning with streamer Hasan Piker, who has made several controversial comments about Jewish voters.
His uncompromising stances on Israel have also made him a target among pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, which has spent heavily against him in both the primary and general election. AIPAC’s rare entry into a general election race came to support his Republican opponent, Rogers.
One of El-Sayed’s positions on Israel — to end all US military aid — was once thought a far-left pipe dream. But that has changed. On the morning of election day, Trump announced that, under his watch, nearly $4 billion in annual US military aid to Israel would wind down by the end of the year. Trump said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in agreement on the need to end aid and deny Democratic critics a point of attack.
El-Sayed’s campaign galvanized young voters and a range of other constituencies, and he pulled ahead in the polls in the race’s final stretch. But his questioning of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and whether it or Iran posed a greater threat to the United States, as well as his prior association with figures such as Piker, sparked concern among Jewish Michiganders.
So, too, did comments the candidate made following the March terror attack on Temple Israel, a major synagogue in Michigan, which he appeared to link to Israel’s war in Lebanon when he said “Hurt people hurt people,” amid reports that the attacker had lost family in an Israeli strike. Hostile behavior from some of El-Sayed’s supporters toward pro-Israel Democrats, most prominently on display at the state party’s spring convention, also alarmed Jews. El-Sayed has pledged to stand up to antisemitism.
Some Jews who had long considered themselves Democrats, including several local Jewish leaders, have cited such controversies in pledging to vote for Rogers. In some Michigan Jewish neighborhoods, yard signs proclaimed that a vote for Rogers is a vote “against antisemitism.”
Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed, also came out in support of Rogers at the 11th hour.
The Michigan doctor rallied voters on leftist campaign promises, including universal health care, to hold a key US Senate seat for Democrats, taking over from the retiring Gary Peters.
Republicans ran a scorched-earth campaign to paint Democrats as communists and branded El-Sayed a terrorist who would endanger Americans.
But the 42-year-old El-Sayed pledged to help cash-strapped voters navigate America’s thorny health care system.
“You deserve to be able to see a doctor without getting a huge bill,” he told Michiganders on the eve of the vote, vowing to upend America’s divisive multibillion-dollar for-profit medical system.
During the race, El-Sayed drew huge campaign crowds across the state, even in deeply conservative Republican areas.
El-Sayed also vowed to get “money out of politics” and address the harsh economic woes that have voters yearning for a political newcomer to shake up the status quo.
The Times of Israel Community.