Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate seat as Democrats split over Israel aid

Michigan result

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and former Detroit health director, defeated Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race. Wayne County results sealed the victory on Tuesday, 3 November. He will be the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Senate and is due to take office next year. In Bhatkal, Karnataka, where his wife Sarah Jukaku has relatives, family members celebrated the result, and one of them called it a deeply personal triumph.

The race was expensive. According to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan tracker of money in politics, more than $150m was spent against El-Sayed, and pro-Israel groups, including Aipac, were behind much of it. El-Sayed campaigned on Medicare for all and money out of politics, and he attacked the amount of spending on the race as a way of buying influence.

Trump cuts aid to Israel

On Fox & Friends on Tuesday, 3 November, President Donald Trump announced that the United States was cutting aid to Israel, saying Israel no longer needed the money. He said the decision had been made with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Independent reported that Trump had floated cutting $4 billion in aid to Israel by the end of the year. According to de Volkskrant, Israel receives $3.8 billion a year in American weapons, money it does not have to repay.

“Israel is our number one. We give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it.”

El-Sayed backed the idea. On Thursday, 5 November, he told the hosts of MS NOW's Morning Joe that he would love to work with Trump on it. He also said he did not think the US should keep selling weapons to a country using them to do awful things. El-Sayed calls the war in Gaza a genocide, a charge Israel has vehemently denied.

Democrats split over arms sales

After his victory, El-Sayed sharply criticised US arms sales to Israel and said Palestinian children should be able to grow up without being killed with American tax money. Newly elected New York Democrat Darializa Avila Chevalier wants to impose an arms embargo on Israel immediately. Long-serving Democrat Ro Khanna also said he would work to end aid to Israel. According to de Volkskrant, Vice President JD Vance has increasingly questioned the support as well.

The pressure has been building. In July, a majority of House Democrats backed a proposal to halt about $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel, the first time so many Democrats had voted for such a cutoff. The measure failed because the rest of the Democrats and the Republicans did not support it. El-Sayed and his progressive colleagues are expected to propose limits on aid when they take office in January. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House who is expected to become speaker, received a clear warning from their victory speeches.

Jewish voters and the Israel debate

A POLITICO analysis of precinct-level results found that El-Sayed ran well behind other Michigan Democrats in areas with more Jewish voters. Statewide he received 52.5% against 54.5% for Democratic Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson. In Huntington Woods, a Detroit suburb that is roughly two-thirds Jewish, he took 65.3% against Benson's 80%. In West Bloomfield, the site of a March synagogue attack, he ran 8.8 points behind Benson.

El-Sayed, statewide52.5%

Benson, statewide54.5%

El-Sayed, Huntington Woods65.3%

Benson, Huntington Woods80%

El-Sayed, statewide

52.5 %

Benson, statewide

54.5 %

El-Sayed, Huntington Woods

65.3 %

Benson, Huntington Woods

80 %

Data from the article text

El-Sayed faced blowback from some Jewish Democrats over his calls to end US military support for Israel and over remarks after the synagogue attack that hurt people hurt people, which he later apologized for. In an interview he acknowledged Israel was a source of disagreement but said he is not changing his position.

“We have to separate between Judaism and the Jewish people and Israel and its actions. We have to”

He framed the distinction as the basis for a future in which Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli children can grow up without violence, asking how that could be achieved.