The US Senate race in Michigan state between the Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, and his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, is this year’s most important election in America.
It’s significant, on a number of levels, not the least of which is that Mr El-Sayed is an Arab-American Muslim of Egyptian descent. Prior to this, the country had four Arab Americans elected to the US Senate – former majority leader George Mitchell, James Abourezk, James Abdnor and John Sununu – none of them Muslim.
If elected, Mr El-Sayed would be the first Muslim in the Senate. This is a breakthrough that hasn’t been lost on Republicans and President Donald Trump, who have made a determined effort to exploit it at every turn. They’ve done TV ads alleging that Mr El-Sayed’s mother was affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s.
The problem with this charge is that Mr El-Sayed’s parents separated when he was three; she moved back to Egypt, and he grew up with his father in Michigan. But when using slanderous attacks to tarnish a candidate is the goal, facts don’t seem to matter. And so, the Republican Party has persisted in spreading the Muslim Brotherhood accusation on social media. Hecklers at a few of Mr El-Sayed’s campaign events have pestered him with questions like: “Will you denounce the Muslim Brotherhood?” A recent exchange of this sort backfired on one of the instigators.
At a town hall when a young man asked whether Mr El-Sayed would denounce the group, Mr El-Sayed shot back, “Yes, absolutely”, and then pivoted by asking the questioner, “Why are you asking me this?” wanting to know whether it was because of his name and how he prayed. He then made clear that the document to which he would take an oath was the US Constitution and smartly compared the attacks against his religion with those levelled against late president John F Kennedy in the early 1960s – that Mr Kennedy would be more loyal to the Catholic Pope than to the Constitution. Mr El-Sayed concluded noting that he wasn’t running to be a Muslim senator, but a senator who happened to be a Muslim.
That exchange went viral on social media, drawing more than 50 million viewers on the first night. The next day, it was revealed that the heckler was a former staffer for a conservative anti-Muslim senator. He had been hired by a group that had received a very substantial contract to recruit hecklers to disrupt Mr El-Sayed’s events.
This brings into focus another reason why this election is so important: the role of dark money in American politics. Dark money refers to money raised by “super Pacs” and independent expenditure funds that are not required to report donors before elections. This has allowed billionaires and special interest groups to amass large sums and spend them to defame candidates who oppose their agendas. Increasingly, these dark money sources are raising and spending more on campaigns than the candidates raise for themselves.
In the primary, Mr El-Sayed was confronted by dark money expenditures of $70 million ($31 million from pro-Israel groups), much of it on negative attacks against him. Despite being outspent by a margin of 11 to 1, Mr El-Sayed won. In the general election, it is estimated that another $100 million in dark money will be spent against him. If he wins, it will demonstrate the limits of dark money and help advance the argument that it should be banned because of its corrosive role in American democracy.
From the beginning of his campaign, Mr El-Sayed has been a clear and consistent critic of US support for the Israeli war in Gaza. This appears to be the main reason why so much pro-Israel super-Pac money was spent to defeat him. His Democratic primary opponent made support for Israel central to her campaign, at one point emotionally noting how much she loved and would always stand by Israel.
Pro-Israel Jewish organisations denounced Mr El-Sayed and did their best to tarnish him, labelling him anti-Semitic. This succeeded in costing Mr El-Sayed some support from Jewish-American Democratic voters. He won the primary, with one pre-election survey saying he had nevertheless retained the support of a bloc of progressive Jewish voters.
Now in the general election, Mr El-Sayed is still being confronted by the same attacks and an organised effort among these same pro-Israel groups that are pledging to vote for his opponent. Mr El-Sayed has made it clear that instead of spending billions to buy bombs to kill Palestinians, America’s wealth ought to go to build better schools, provide health care, and provide for people’s needs here at home. While this was once a taboo topic, it has resonated with Democrats and independent voters. This, in itself, is a breakthrough.
Finally, an El-Sayed victory will succeed in advancing a progressive agenda. Despite being attacked as a socialist, he maintains that he is a supporter of capitalism who wants to see it work to meet the needs of people. He makes this point with a mantra he uses to begin his rallies: “Money out of politics, money in your pockets, Medicare for all.”
His arguments are simple. It shouldn’t be easier for a billionaire to make another billion than it is for a family to be lifted out of poverty. Health care should be seen as a human right for all, not a privilege that can only be afforded by some. And instead of spending billions for wars, the US government needs to invest in schools and the quality of life at home.
These are the challenges Mr El-Sayed presents to US politics. If he wins, he will have succeeded in shattering taboos and raising issues that will have a lasting impact. And even if he loses, American politics will never be the same. On so many levels, this is a historic, transformative campaign.
