A surprise win in Michigan primary race

The Democratic party’s establishment received a major shock when the Michigan primary race for the US Senate was won by Abdulrahman El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official who is critical of Israel. Although the pro-Israel lobby had invested $30 million in this primary, the largest sum in the lobby’s history, sitting Congresswoman Haley Stevens lost. Consequently, the lobby has decided to shift to a Republican candidate. This move reveals just how opportunistic the lobby has become. Money and ideology be damned.

“Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda,” the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) stated. “Our community is proud to support pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans who stand for our values.” However often they shift.

El-Sayed is an American Muslim of Egyptian background who has never held elected office. He won the exceptionally tight race by one percentage point, making this a dramatic rejection for the choice of establishment Democrats, and a boost to the progressive agenda. This was notable development as 500,000 more Democratic party voters participated than in previous primary races, which normally see low turnouts. El-Sayed’s candidacy clearly stirred the interest of voters who cast ballots, in this exceptional consultation. It has been estimated that $95 was spent for every vote against El-Sayed, more than 10 times as much as his average expenditure on each vote, his campaign announced.

At least 250 progressives currently hold elected positions in the US while 35 progressive candidates defeated establishment Democratic candidates for Congress in this year’s primary elections. These results reveal there has been a significant shift within the party ahead of the November mid-term elections which will determine whether the House of Representatives and/or Senate will continue to support Republican Donald Trump’s policies.

The mid-term polls are to be held in all 435 congressional districts across each of the fifty states, and five of the six non-voting delegates representing the District of Columbia where the capital is located and inhabited US territories.

El-Sayed is from Michigan’s Dearborn which has the highest proportion of Muslim and Arab residents of any US city. Larger cities like New York, Houston, and Chicago have more Muslim residents, but only Dearborn has a majority of Arabs and Muslims. Dearborn hosts the Islamic Centre of America, which is one of the largest mosques in North America, and has introduced Arab and Muslim cultural and religious observances at the municipal level.

Arabs from the Middle East and North Africa Arabs moved to Dearborn for automobile industry jobs during the 1920s when they were, recruited by Henry Ford, who founded the Ford Motor company. Immigrants arrived from Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen and settled in the city’s South End. Subsequent waves in the late 20th and early 21st centuries included Palestinians driven from their country by Israel, refugees from Lebanon’s 1975–1990 civil conflict, and the Gulf and Iraq wars. The immigrants founded family networks and community infrastructure which facilitated later arrivals from Yemen, Iraq, and Syria. While these refugees settled in their new country, they retained the social and cultural practices of their countries of origin, contributing to those of the communities where they settled and the US overall. Many have remained in close contact with relatives in their home countries and contributed financially to their well-being.

After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, I travelled the length of the border from Naqoura to Marjayoun before visiting Dearborn. While asking for Dearborn residents’ reactions to events in Lebanon, they quizzed me over whom I met in Lebanon.

El-Sayed can count on the support of some US citizens of Arab and Muslim origin, but this will not be enough to give him victory in the Senate election, which is held every six years. He will have to connect with Michigan Democrats overall by proclaiming policies they support.

He is a progressive Democrat who has accepted thousands of donations from individuals rather than large sums from lobby groups. He joined Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign and spoke on his behalf at events and in media interviews. El-Sayed calls for Medicare for All, tougher enforcement of environmental laws, merger of the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality into a single Department of the Environment, and “100 per cent renewable energy” in Michigan by 2030. El-Sayed urges stepping up implementation of anti-monopoly laws and eliminating corporate tax reductions. In June 2026, he released a plan calling for more regulations on artificial intelligence companies.

While he opposes US military assistance to foreign countries, he admits US aid was essential for Ukraine during Russia’s invasion and for Serbia during the 1990s. He said he would end US military assistance to Israel which he has castigated over the Gaza war, dubbing it a “genocide.” In April 2026, El-Sayed said in a CNN interview: “Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not how evil is this one versus that one. Hamas: evil. Israeli government: evil. We can say both.” In July, he said, “The question of Israel’s existence is not a question. I’m not going to play this gotcha game about whether or not it has a right to exist. The question, ultimately, is about whether or not we want a politics that dignifies equal rights.” He has called Israel an ethno-state and has said, “I don’t believe in ethno-states, and I certainly don’t believe that our country is responsible to sustain ethno-states.” El-Sayed attributed the 2026 Iran war to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s influence in US politics. He called Israel a “rogue state” that is committing “human rights abuses, genocide, and apartheid” and said the US should “stop funding the Israeli military unilateral” campaigns like the latest war on Gaza.