Democrat El-Sayed wins Michigan: The victory of the “most unlikely of all candidates”

He becomes the first Muslim senator in the USA: Abdul El-Sayed. “We did it,” the 42-year-old Democrat shouted to his supporters in Detroit, Michigan, early Wednesday morning as he declared himself the winner – even before the US news channels reported the race as decided. "You bet on the most unlikely of all candidates. Thank you, you all deserve it!"

Voters in industrial Michigan, home to the largest Arab minority in the USA, had to wait longer about the result than in other states where the Democrats won in the midterms. Counting was carried out slowly in individual districts of the state. Finally the result was there: In addition to Senator El-Sayed, his party colleague Joselyn Benson was also elected governor.

An election party in Washington, D.C., around 600 kilometers as the crow flies from Detroit: 26-year-old Rohan Singh comes from Michigan himself. He tells the taz how much it inspires him that a “man of color with a funny name” is running in his home country. This time, his friends in Michigan “really wanted to vote for El-Sayed, instead of just against the Republican.” He was disappointed with the established Democrats for a long time, but this time there was a “real left” alternative.

The progressive El-Sayed ran with the slogan “Money out of politics, money in your pockets, Medicare for all”: a plea against the horrendous price increases as a result of the Iran war and for statutory health insurance. The doctor, who often appears in a black T-shirt instead of a suit, previously headed health authorities in the state. He made poor medical care one of his core issues.

El-Sayed also positions himself against the Democratic party establishment and its proximity to the economy. He always emphasized not accepting money from companies and instead relying on thousands of small donors. In the final stretch of his election campaign, he received massive support from Democratic lobbying organizations.

The skilled speaker perhaps needed this in order to be able to hold his own against his financially better-equipped opponents. Republicans and right-wing media ran a multi-million dollar smear campaign against him until the very end. His direct opponent, Republican Mike Rogers, repeatedly tried to bring him closer to the Muslim Brotherhood. US President Donald Trump called him a “jihadist,” joked about his name, and most recently even said that if El-Sayed were elected, “he would be the only senator who would have to go through a metal detector” when he entered the Senate.

But the Democrat refused to be intimidated. He replied that he would be happy to go through a metal detector if Trump sat down at a lie detector. The scandal surrounding Democrat Haley Stevens, who lost in the primaries to the left-wing politician and decided at the last minute to support his opponent Mike Rogers, did not significantly harm him.

A key point of contention between Stevens and El-Sayed was U.S.-Israel relations. El-Sayed repeatedly sharply criticizes Israel's war in Gaza and the occupation in the West Bank. Stevens and Rogers, on the other hand, are known as passionate supporters of Israel. The Israel lobby AIPAC invested an unprecedented $30 million in Stevens' primary campaign. El-Sayed was accused of anti-Semitism. Many Jewish voters voted for Stevens in the primary.

This is one of the reasons why the election campaign in Michigan was one of the most watched of this year's midterms. The Senate seat in Michigan is considered safe for the Democrats - there have been no Republican senators here for over 30 years. But an openly left-wing candidate who loudly advocates ideas such as stopping arms sales to Israel or taxing billionaires seemed to some critics to be an unnecessary risk. Given Trump's poor popularity ratings, the assumption is that a colorless Democrat would have won by himself.

But these doubts should now be dispelled. Abdul El-Sayed's victory in the workers' state of Michigan, which twice voted for Donald Trump in the presidential election, also sends a signal to other progressive candidates in the USA: If a left-wing, Palestinian-solidarist Muslim can make it in Michigan, many other things are also possible.

At the end of his inaugural speech in Detroit, El-Sayed wished his defeated opponent Mike Rogers “a nice retirement.” He knows that he is well looked after with a house in Florida and two yachts. Then he turned again to his constituents and to all parents who would have tried to explain to their children why the president mocks someone because of their name or the way they pray. “Let them know that the bad guys have lost.”