EASTORA REPORT | Abdul El-Sayed celebrated a historic victory in Michigan with a message for Donald Trump: the man the president mocked during the campaign will soon be a United States senator.
“Donald, look, I know you struggled with my name,” the Democrat told cheering supporters in Detroit. “So after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me Senator.”
He had a line for Vice President JD Vance too: “JD, habibi,” he said, pointing to the irony that Vance would be constitutionally responsible for swearing him in.
El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races, becoming the first Muslim elected to the chamber. The Associated Press has called the contest in his favor.
His victory followed a campaign in which Trump and Republican allies attacked his religion and questioned his loyalty. El-Sayed turned those attacks into a broader argument about who belongs in America.
“They wanted America that’s too small for some of us,” he said. “We know that America is big enough for all of us.”
But the speech was not simply a celebration of identity. It was also a challenge to how Washington spends American money and wages war abroad.
“We want our taxes spent here, for schools here, and healthcare here, and infrastructure here,” El-Sayed said. “We don’t want our money sent to do apartheid, or genocide, or war.”
He defended Palestinian rights and rejected the idea that opposing U.S. military support for Israel amounted to hatred, saying equal rights, dignity and self-determination were expressions of love, not hate.
That position had made Israel a central fault line in his contest with Rogers, who defended the U.S.-Israel alliance and accused his opponent of dangerous rhetoric.
El-Sayed’s win came as Democrats captured the Senate and House, shifting control of Congress after an election shaped by living costs, foreign wars and opposition to Trump.
For a candidate whose name and faith became campaign targets, the sharpest line of the night was also the simplest: in January, the vice president will have to welcome him to the Senate.