Democrat Abdul el-Sayed has won the US Senate race in Michigan, defeating Republican opponent Mike Rogers in a high-profile contest to succeed retiring two-term Democratic Senator Gary Peters.
El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, reached the general election after narrowly defeating Haley Stevens in an expensive and bruising Democratic primary. Stevens subsequently endorsed Rogers on the Sunday before the election.
The vacancy in Michigan became a central battleground in the nationwide struggle for Senate control, generating well over $100 million in advertising after the August 4 primary. The result maintains a decades-long winning streak for Democrats in the state, where no Republican has captured a Senate seat since 1994.
In his victory address, el-Sayed reiterated key campaign pledges, including improving affordability, removing big money from political campaigns, passing Medicare for All, and ending funding for foreign conflicts.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids, instead of dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids,” el-Sayed told his supporters.
The campaign was also marked by racially charged and Islamophobic rhetoric directed at el-Sayed by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. El-Sayed challenged both figures in his speech, telling Trump: “Donald – I know you struggled with my name. So after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on to call me Senator.”
Framing the result as a victory over well-funded opposition, el-Sayed declared: “We showed that in a battle between the money and the many that the many can win.”
