Progressive firebrand Abdul El-Sayed beat four-term Rep. Haley Stevens to win the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in battleground Michigan, according to the Associated Press.
Here are some things to know about El-Sayed:
Unabashedly progressive
Like many far-left candidates, El-Sayed supports Medicare for All and free child care and wants to see the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency abolished. He calls Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide.
While he isn’t a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, El-Sayed has support from many who are part of that movement, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).
“I’m not technically or practically DSA,” he told The Wall Street Journal last month. El-Sayed said he isn’t against capitalism if there are sufficient guardrails. At every stop, he cites a campaign mantra along the lines of wanting to “get money out of politics, put money in pockets, and promote Medicare for All.”
Michigan roots
El-Sayed, 41 years old, grew up in the Detroit area. A Muslim whose parents emigrated from Egypt, he graduated from the University of Michigan, where he was on the lacrosse team. He later earned a Columbia University medical degree and a doctorate in public health at Oxford University.
El-Sayed, a former local public-health official, has never held elected office. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer beat El-Sayed in a 2018 gubernatorial primary by 22 percentage points.
A Rhodes scholar who cites economist Adam Smith in making his case about the need for more regulation and taxation, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim senator if elected this fall. He faces Republican Mike Rogers.
Past calls for defunding the police
As many progressives did in the wake of Minneapolis police murdering George Floyd in 2020, El-Sayed called for defunding the police. He has since deleted posts on the topic and says he now rejects the idea, suggesting a more nuanced approach is needed when it comes to balancing policing and other services that might help reduce crime and police calls.
A doctor, but not a physician
El-Sayed for years called himself a physician, but there is no public evidence he has experience as a licensed medical doctor.
“He studied to be a doctor—but realized it was our broken politics that was making people sick,” a biography on his campaign website says. “He rebuilt Detroit’s Health Department after bankruptcy. Then he restructured Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services.”
Controversial company
El-Sayed has campaigned with Hasan Piker, an online influencer and critic of Israel whose opponents accuse him of antisemitism.
“I’ll talk to anybody who’s got an audience that I think I can win over,” El-Sayed said in a Wall Street Journal interview in July. “You remember the cancel-culture years and how angry a lot of conservatives were about cancel culture? It turns out that people like to have that conversation when it applies for them, but not when it applies for other people. I don’t believe in cancel culture.”
