Democratic nominee for Senate Abdul El-Sayed speaks during a campaign event in Detroit. Alamy Stock Photo
ColumnStars and Swipes
The charismatic Michigan Democrat has the talent to follow in Barack Obama’s footsteps. But Trump and his allies are throwing every anti-Muslim slur in the book at him.
Marion McKeone
IN 1960, JOHN F Kennedy, seeking to assure voters that his presidency would not open a trapdoor to Papal influence, told Americans “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who also happens to be a Catholic.”By assuaging Protestant fears through a mix of charm and oratorical skills tailor made for the television era, he made history as America’s first Catholic president.
In 2008 Barack Obama overcame a more daunting challenge by adapting the Kennedy playbook; running as a candidate who happened to be Black, rather than as a Black candidate.
But Obama’s sunny confidence – which was lauded as charisma in Kennedy and Clinton – grated on many Americans who didn’t consider themselves racist. Republicans called him ‘uppity’; a word with a long and sinister history that was often used as a precursor to, or excuse for, violence against successful Black Americans.
Abdul Al Sayed, the Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat in Michigan, is facing a similar challenge. Only more so; Islamophobia is the last acceptable prejudice in America.
It’s not only tolerated, in Republican ranks it’s actively celebrated. When the Muslim in question is also a first generation Egyptian American of Arab descent, it generates an online free for all, and a pile-on at Republican rallies and events where naked bigotry is rewarded with cheers and laughter.
Who is Al Sayed?
Al Sayed is a Rhodes Scholar with a PhD in public health and a graduate of Columbia University’s prestigious School of Physicians and Surgeons. Instead of building a lucrative private practice, he became one of Michigan’s most effective public health directors, whipping two bloated, ineffective bureaucracies into shape to the benefit of the state’s most underserved citizens.
Along the way, he became an associate Professor, wrote books and peer reviewed reports on public health care and served as an advisor to the Biden administration.
A future Democratic president could go a long way towards righting the havoc Robert F Kennedy Jr has wreaked on America’s public health systems by appointing Al Sayed as Health Secretary.
I’ve spoken with several Democrats who agree that Al Sayed is on a par with Obama when it comes to raw political talent. Back in 2020, Michigan native and veteran journalist Ron Fournier first advised me Al Sayed was a rising political star, equating his mix of smarts and communication skills with Bill Clinton’s.
He’s remarkably quick on his feet, a mix of ebullient geek and gym bro in form fitting t-shirts and jeans. He trots out his all-American credentials on Instagram and TikTok – an unapologetic capitalist, high school football captain and Ivy League graduate. His video posts range from comic to cocksure to downright cheesy – but it’s hard to construe his high energy lip-synch and dance routines to Taylor Swift hits as anything other than a celebration of American culture.
He’s a master of rapid-fire ripostes, charismatic, persuasive and relentlessly on message. If it weren’t for his Arab and Muslim heritage, he’d be a shoo-in for the Senate and a formidable contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination.
Voting in The Great Lakes State
Michigan is the last of a handful of true swing states. It voted for Trump in 2016 and 2024 but its governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor are all two term Democrats. Both of its current Senators are Democrats while seven of its thirteen House Representatives are Republican. It also has America’s biggest Muslim and Arab American populations after New York and California, while cities like Detroit, Ann Arbor and Michigan are Democratic strongholds.
But it’s no moderate utopia. Its rural hinterlands are home to preppers, rightwing militias and millions of die-hard Trump supporters. In 2020, a heavily armed mob protesting the Covid lockdown stormed the state Capitol building and a far-right plot to kidnap the Democratic governor was foiled.
Right now, anti-Trump sentiment is running high. A recent study by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a conservative DC think tank, claims Trump’s tariff wars, especially the trade war with Canada, have cost Michigan households an average of $5600 since January. Even in an environment where analysts are predicting a crushing midterm defeat for the Republican Party, Al Sayed’s victory over Mike Rogers, his yacht-owning Republican rival, is by no means assured.
It’s not all down to rampant Islamophobia. Al Sayed hasn’t helped himself on occasion. And he has been widely criticised by Democrats and Republicans for campaigning with Hasan Piker during the primaries. Piker is a controversial left wing streamer whose comments that ‘America deserved 9/11 and that he would ‘vote for Hamas over Israel every time. Given his uphill battle to overcome anti-Muslim bias, it’s an association he can ill afford.
His most controversial statement – an observation that ‘hurt people hurt people’ – was four words in a 12-paragraph statement that condemned the attack on the Temple Israel synagogue last March and pledged solidarity with the Jewish community. But Al Sayed isn’t naïve; as a shrewd political operator, he should have foreseen his words would be weaponised by his opponents.
His signature on an ill-considered 2012 FaceBook letter calling for Egypt’s new President to ‘purge the media and the police’ of holdovers from Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime, is likewise grist to the MAGA mill, fuelling claims he supports the Muslim Brotherhood, even though America was then largely supportive of the wave of pro-democracy protests and uprisings that spread across the Middle East.
But in a bitterly partisan political climate where the Republican Party and Trump have wholeheartedly embraced the white Christian nationalist movement, there’s little appetite for nuance. And with 76% of Americans soured on the Trump economy, religion and race-baiting is one of the more effective methods of galvanising the MAGA base and voter turnout.
Trump has variously branded Al Sayed a jihadist, a radical extremist and a terrorist sympathiser in Truth Social posts. At rallies dubs him ‘Abdulalalalala’, evoking cheers and chants of ‘USA!”
Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has branded him ‘a terrorist.’ Ted Cruz added that he supports Sharia law for good measure. JD Vance has labeled him ‘evil’ and peddled the Muslim terrorist sympathiser tropes. Al Sayed, he recently told a cheering crowd, is a ‘little weasel who should shut his mouth and show a little gratitude.’
It’s hard to recall the perennially supercilious Vance expressing gratitude for the food stamps and health care programmes his family depended on during his youth. Or his taxpayer-funded stint at Yale, which facilitated his trajectory from an impoverished Appalachian existence to one where his eight-year-old son is flown to private golf lessons via helicopter. The only continuum is that it’s still on the taxpayer’s dime. Yet Vance’s expressions of gratitude are reserved for billionaire patrons like Peter Thiel.
The US Vice President has not demanded that Republican candidates contesting seats in the House and Congress ‘show a little gratitude.’ The clear implication is that they are real Americans and therefore entitled to benefit from federal subsidies and that Al Sayed, who was born and raised in Michigan, is not.
Heated exchange
This bias was on display during a Michigan town hall gathering last week, when Tommy Teepell (who was subsequently identified as the son of a veteran Republican strategist and a former operations director for Missouri Senator Josh Hawley) initiated an exchange with Al Sayed by asking him if he disavowed The Muslim Brotherhood.
“Sure. Yeah. Absolutely,” Al Sayed responded. A tense back and forth ensued with Al Sayed citing Kennedy and Obama, whilst pointing out that under the US Constitution both he and Teepell were free to practice their respective religions. When he asked Teepell to disavow any attempt to insert religious doctrine into US law, Teepell refused, handing Al Sayed the winning point.
“So I think it’s you who needs to understand the Constitution now,” he said as Teepell walked out to cheers and jeers.
It should have been a victory for Al Sayed, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was cited as evidence that he was arrogant, prickly, combative, traits that are the preserve of white Christian males in America’s political arena.
USA TODAY / YouTube
The Islamophobia levelled at El Sayed has gone largely unchallenged by the Democratic leadership, which was slow to endorse him. It’s no secret they urged Pete Buttigieg, who lives in Michigan, to enter the race when Gary Peters announced he wouldn’t seek another term.
There’s little doubt that Buttigieg, a popular Democrat and one of the Party’s most articulate and effective spokespersons, would have avoided the ugly primary battle that erupted between Al Sayed and Democratic Congresswoman Hayley Stevens. Given his profile and broad appeal, it’s equally likely Buttigieg would have cruised to victory in November, without the cash-strapped Democrats having to pump the sort of money and resources they’re currently dispatching to Michigan.
But the former Transport Secretary is eyeing the Democratic nomination in 2028, in an unlikely quest to make history as America’s first openly gay President. Meanwhile the battle for control of the Senate and Al Sayed’s bid to become the highest-ranking Muslim in US politics rages on.
Marion McKeone is an award-winning journalist, writer and documentary maker.