El-Sayed Becomes First Muslim Elected To US Senate, Mocks AIPAC In Victory Speech

Via Middle East Eye

Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won a highly coveted Michigan Senate seat on Wednesday, and will become the first Muslim to serve in the upper chamber of Congress come January. 

El-Sayed declared victory with 80 percent of votes counted, showing him in a comfortable 51.8 percent lead compared to his Republican opponent Mike Rogers at 46.2 percent. The Associated Press declared El-Sayed the winner at 2:27 am EST (7:27 GMT).

“I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect,” Sayed said in an energized victory speech, where he said he was able to overcome ‘Islamophobic slurs’ aimed at him by US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

“To all the parents who struggled to explain [to their kids] why the president openly mocked someone for their name or how they pray, let them know tomorrow that the bad guys lost,” he said to cheers and applause. 

“They want an America that is too small for some of us. We know that America is big enough for all of us,” he added.  Sayed, smiling and responding to lively applause specifically called out Vance and Trump. 

“JD, habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you’re constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January,” he said. 

To Trump he said: “Donald, I know you struggle with my name, so after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me Senator“. 

Sayed’s victory marks a watershed moment in US political history. A progressive who shocked the party establishment when he narrowly defeated Haley Stevens, who was backed by pro-Israel lobbying groups, in the August Democratic primary, Sayed was endorsed early by the Senate’s leading voice on progressive issues, Bernie Sanders of Vermont. 

Sayed specifically challenged the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and other pro-Israel lobbying groups that spent tens of millions of dollars against him. 

“To Aipac who spent $42 million against us. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice,” he said. 

“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,” he said. “If you believe in equal rights for peace, diginity and self-determination that’s not hate, it’s love,” he said. 

Online accounts on the Right react: “…actually terrifying”

“We want our taxes spent here…we don’t want our money sent to do apartheid or genocidal war,” he said. 

That race proved so pivotal that half a million more Democratic voters showed up to the polls than in previous primary races, which typically see low turnouts, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said at the time. 

In the later stages of his campaign, Sayed received the backing of former President Barack Obama, who remains one of the most popular figures among the party establishment.