Abdul El-Sayed could be the first Muslim senator. Here are 5 religion takeaways from his campaign.

(RNS) — Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive former public health official, who won the Michigan Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, made history Tuesday (April 4) by becoming the the first Muslim to win a Senate primary. If El-Sayed, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, succeeds over his Republican challenger, former Congressman Mike Rogers, in November, he will become the first Muslim to serve in the Senate.

Here are five takeaways about El-Sayed and the role religion played in his primary campaign.

El-Sayed represents a milestone for American Muslims

El-Sayed’s victory is a watershed moment for Muslim political representation in the country. There are only four Muslims serving in the U.S. House.

The 41-year-old epidemiologist succeeded in the Tuesday (Aug. 4) primary amid rising anti-Muslim hate, intimidation and discrimination incidents across the country. At the same time, his victory follows that of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, also the first Muslim to serve in his role, who won the mayoral contest in 2025.

He follows a now established pattern of progressive Muslims such as Mamdani, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

“Abdul’s victory shows that Muslims belong in American politics,” said Nada Al-Hanooti, a Michigan native and deputy organizing director at Emgage, a Muslim political group. “Candidates like Abdul are proving that Muslims are Americans. We’re Americans just as anyone else. And when we are in positions of leadership, we are not only serving the Muslim community; we’re serving all Americans.”

El-Sayed is a proud Muslim

El-Sayed has not shied away from talking about his Muslim faith on the campaign trail. In a pre-victory speech Tuesday, for example, El-Sayed used the word “inshallah,” or “God-willing,” saying he would win against Republican Rogers in November.

Born in Rochester Hills, Michigan, north of Detroit, his first language was Arabic.

“I believe deeply in the role that faith has played in my life, in, you know, how it orients me to try and be a better person, to give more of myself, to know my fellow creation, to treat people — all people — with dignity and humanity and respect,” he told RNS in an October 2025 interview.

El-Sayed has said he believes in the fundamental separation of church and state, adding that he wants “to protect the kind of America where everybody can pray how they choose to pray, or choose not to pray at all.”

Imam Suleiman Hani, a resident scholar at the Muslim Community Mosque in Farmington Hills, Michigan, who has known El-Sayed for years, described the candidate as a practicing Muslim who has long been a part of Ann Arbor and Detroit-area Muslim communities. He said it was remarkable that El-Sayed did not budge on his values, despite historic campaign spending from his primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens.

El-Sayed proposed to his wife, Sarah Jukaku, when the two were undergraduates at the University of Michigan. She is also a Muslim, the daughter of immigrants from India, who wears a hijab, the traditional headscarf worn by many Muslim women. The couple has two daughters.

El-Sayed’s victory offers further proof that Democrats critical of Israel can win

El-Sayed has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and said he would cut U.S. military aid to Israel. And he has suggested that Israel should not exist as an explicitly Jewish state.

His win, following Mamdani’s groundbreaking victory last November, is a clear sign that Democratic support for Israel is declining, and that candidates for public office who criticize Israel are electable.

Michigan’s Jewish citizens largely opposed El-Sayed’s candidacy, although final election demographic data is not yet available. The Jewish Democratic Council of America endorsed Stevens.

Jewish congregations, which do not typically make endorsements, nonetheless made their views known. Shaarey Zedek, a large Conservative congregation in Southfield, Michigan, took the unusual step of sending a letter to each household in the 1,000-member congregation urging everyone to vote.

Though the letter did not name the candidates, it called on congregants of Shaarey Zedek to “support in this primary the candidate whose record, actions and rhetoric demonstrate the strongest commitment to protecting Jewish lives … and supporting Israel’s security and right to exist as a Jewish state.”

In interviews, Shaarey Zedek’s rabbi, Aaron Starr, who is also president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis, said Stevens has been “an ongoing friend of the Jewish community.”

His win is a signal the power of AIPAC may have peaked

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent more than $30 million boosting Stevens through its United Democracy Project, a super PAC that has infused millions of dollars to prop up pro-Israel candidates. AIPAC is a secular organization, and many of its donors are not Jewish, but it has been encouraged and guided by Israeli governments.

By the sheer amount of its spending, AIPAC has typically ensured the candidate with the most money wins. In 2022, it spent $4.3 million on Stevens to unseat former Rep. Andy Levin, who is Jewish but a critic of Israel’s government. It succeeded.

Levin, who now works as a green energy entrepreneur and climate consultant, supported El-Sayed in the primary. He told RNS that the days of AIPAC influence are changing.

“The American people are just fed up with politics as usual, money in politics, the influence of corporations and special interests like AIPAC,” Levin said. “They’re sick of it; they want truth-telling, they want authenticity and they want bravery.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group that has served as a counterweight to AIPAC, summed up the change in a blogpost titled, “The Beatles’ Message to AIPAC: Money Can’t Buy You Love.”

A small but energetic group of liberal Jews proudly campaigned for him

Liberal Jewish Michigan residents formed a “Jews for Abdul” group. In the final days of the campaign, it canvassed alongside another group, “Muslims for Abdul.”

Jews in this group forcefully condemned Israel’s war on Gaza and its violent assaults on West Bank Palestinians.

“So much of what Abdul stands for is that we should not be sending billions of dollars to kill children in Gaza, in Palestine or anywhere else in the world,” said Barbara Weinberg Barefield, a 76-year-old artist and activist from Detroit who was part of Jews for Abdul. “That money should be used for peaceful humanitarian purposes and should be directed toward the needs that we have in this country: health care, education, infrastructure, jobs, food, utilities, all the things that people need so desperately in Detroit and in Michigan.”

That view is growing. A poll of American Jews earlier this year found that 70% of American Jews oppose unconditional military and financial assistance to Israel.

One synagogue in particular, T’chiyah, a small Reconstructionist congregation in Ferndale, north of Detroit, reached out to El-Sayed and formed good relations with him, inviting him to a Passover seder in April.

Levin, a member of T’chiyah and the congregation’s former president, said other Jews should welcome El-Sayed.

“What I say to my fellow Jews is this: If we’re so proud of how deeply we believe in this American experiment, in this idea of representation, don’t we think Muslims should have representation?” he asked.

In a victory speech on Wednesday morning, El-Sayed appealed to Jewish voters and tried to allay their fears. The question for El-Sayed now is whether he will pull more Jews into his campaign as he heads into the November midterms.

“To all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith, or any faith at all, or no faith at all, I want you to know that my commitment to your safety — to Jewish safety — is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters,” El-Sayed said.

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