‘Rejecting hate’: Abdul El-Sayed wins Senate seat despite racist attacks 

Detroit, Michigan — Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed has defeated his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, to win the United States Senate seat in Michigan, overcoming a campaign of anti-Muslim attacks spearheaded by President Donald Trump.

With the victory on Tuesday, El-Sayed is set to become the first Muslim senator in US history. He will be sworn in on January 3 .

Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), said Republicans had turned anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tropes into a pointed strategy against El-Sayed — one that eventually did not work.

“The electorate rejecting that bigotry is tremendous, I would argue, for every little boy named Abdul, every little girl named Zainab, every little kid named Bobby, because the reality is, at the end of the day, we’re talking about whether this country supports an inclusive democracy or not,” Berry told Al Jazeera.

After winning a hard-fought primary in August that saw the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spend more than $30m against him, El-Sayed, a critic of Israel’s policies, was subjected to an avalanche of unfounded accusations — including that he is a “jihadist” — by Trump and other Republicans.

El-Sayed, a former public health official, campaigned on expanding government-funded healthcare to all Americans, getting money out of politics, and addressing the affordability crisis.

The Democrat has also accused Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza and called for investing money currently spent on foreign wars to instead fix local issues.

The final days of the campaign were rocked by El-Sayed’s former primary opponent, Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens — a staunch Israel supporter — endorsing Rogers.

El-Sayed’s win helps Democrats regain control of the Senate, but for many of his supporters, it means far more than a single seat in the upper chamber of Congress.

Throughout Election Day on Tuesday, voters in Michigan told Al Jazeera the election could determine the direction of the state and the country for years to come.

For Democrats, the vote was about rejecting Trump’s agenda and defeating the racist rhetoric from the president and his allies.

Republicans not only used Islamophobia against El-Sayed, but also invoked Arab-Black tensions to try to peel off African American voters from the Democratic coalition.

Michigan is home to a large Arab American community.

Trump seized on that narrative, saying that any Black or Jewish person who backs El-Sayed is “crazy”.

But early election results show that El-Sayed performed well with Black voters in Detroit.

Gary Colbert, who was casting his ballot on the west side of Detroit, denounced Trump’s comment about Black voters.

“Everybody kind of knows he’s the true nut. He says any and everything,” Colbert told Al Jazeera.

Colbert — who lamented the rise in gas prices due to the Iran war — added that Trump and “his cronies” are negatively affecting people’s lives, “and they don’t care”.

Trump, who is struggling with low approval ratings, told supporters in Michigan last month to vote as if he was on the ballot.

On Tuesday, Frank Espinosa, a teacher who was volunteering at a voting station in Southwest Detroit — home to a large Latino community — said protecting immigrants from Trump’s crackdown is a priority for voters in the city in this election. The Trump administration has targeted immigrant communities across the country by deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on the streets, tasked with arresting allegedly undocumented migrants. Dozens of people have been shot, and several of them killed — including American citizens protesting against what they see as reckless methods of enforcement.

“I think the number one thing we want is ICE out of our streets,” Espinosa told Al Jazeera.

“We also want the end to foreign wars. I know my students want their gas bills to be better. We want affordability all across our city, not just at the gas pump, but at the grocery store as well.”

He added that the campaign targeting El-Sayed’s Muslim faith and Arab identity is “incredibly disheartening”.

“I also know that Detroit is better than all of that, and I think that there’s a lot of noise outside of our state, outside of our city. But here, I know Detroiters will ultimately do the right thing and ultimately vote Abdul for Senate,” Espinosa said.

In neighbouring Dearborn, a Detroit suburb known as the Capital of Arab America, the vote — for many — was about the right to belong to the US.

Ali Baleed Almaklani, a leader in the Yemeni American community, said the anti-Muslim campaign motivated the Arab and Muslim community to increase its political participation.

“We are sick and tired and the American people are generally sick and tired of all this hate,” Almaklani told Al Jazeera.

“He’s talking about healthcare, about the economy, about the issues that are hurting people, and on the other side all they talk about is ‘terrorism’ and baseless accusations about the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Dearborn saw a high voter turnout on Tuesday, with lines stretching across polling stations.

Several voters told Al Jazeera they are responding to bigotry through the ballot box.

In an animated, expletive-laden interview, Dearborn voter Mike Mohammed criticised the Republican-led campaigns to paint Arabs and Muslims, including El-Sayed, as foreigners.

“We’re more American than them. I’m more American than any of them m************. I grew up here. I went to this school,” he said, pointing to the elementary school where the voting was taking place.

Sally Howell, an emeritus history professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who pioneered academic research about Arab American communities, said El-Sayed’s victory shows that the American people want change.

“This change also includes a rejection of hate in politics, especially anti-Muslim hate,” Howell told Al Jazeera. “And it includes a recognition of the value of Palestinian lives alongside those of Americans, immigrants, and so many others. For the Arab community in Michigan, it means people can wake up in the morning knowing that their contributions to the American body politic will be acknowledged, their voices heard and welcomed, their labour rewarded.”