Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, defeating Republican Mike Rogers, the Associated Press reported early Wednesday. The son of Egyptian immigrants will become the first Muslim U.S. senator.
The former public health official will succeed Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who did not seek reelection. El-Sayed’s victory follows an August primary win over Rep. Haley Stevens and a general election campaign backed by the Human Rights Campaign PAC.
“Michigan, we did it!” El-Sayed said in a speech at his election headquarters in Detroit, Agence France-Presse reported. “I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan,” he said.
El-Sayed’s Pledge to LGBTQ+ Michiganders
“LGBTQ+ Michiganders deserve leaders who will have their backs when it matters most, not just when it’s politically convenient,” El-Sayed said in the HRC endorsement announcement in September.
“Abdul El-Sayed is a doctor, a fighter, and exactly the kind of leader Michigan needs right now,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in the endorsement. The group’s release says “El-Sayed led Detroit’s Ryan White HIV program and partnered with LGBT Detroit,” and it credits him with “being outspoken on trans rights.”
His Fox News Exchange on Trans Health Care
Fox News host Jesse Watters pressed him on gender-affirming care in an August interview. “Sex changes for minors, do you support that?” Watters asked, NBC News reported.
“I just think the government shouldn’t tell you what kind of health care you should have,” El-Sayed answered. When Watters asked about a parent’s choices for a child, he said, “It’s a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor and a patient.”
Then he flipped it around. “Are you circumcised?” El-Sayed asked the host, according to NBC, and Watters called his answers “wacky.”
On trans athletes, El-Sayed deferred to sports officials. “At the end of the day, the decision of who gets to play what sports ought to be decided by the people who govern sports,” he said.
What El-Sayed Said About HIV Criminalization
In September, Fox News went back to his 2018 run for governor, when his platform promised to “Repeal HIV/AIDS criminalization laws and the exclusion of transgender Michiganders from state Medicaid.” The law then in place made it a felony for people who knew they had HIV to have sex without first informing a partner.
“You should not be criminalized for a disease. That is absolutely wrong,” El-Sayed said during that 2018 race, Fox reported. “It’s hateful. It’s discriminatory, and we can, as a state, do better.”
His campaign told Fox that he supports the bipartisan reform of that law. Michigan enacted the changes in December 2018, state health officials explain. The criminal-law amendment took effect March 28, 2019.
Mike Rogers’ Record on LGBTQ+ Rights
Rogers, a former congressman and House Intelligence Committee chair, lost his second straight Michigan Senate race. Democrat Elissa Slotkin narrowly defeated him in 2024, the AP reported.
House Clerk records show he voted in 2004 and 2006 for a U.S. constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman, and against the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act in 2010. “Scored 0/100 on every HRC Congressional Scorecard released while he was in office,” HRC’s release says of Rogers.
Rogers also voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007. In April 2009, he voted against the House’s standalone hate crimes bill. That October, he voted against the final defense bill that carried the expanded hate crimes protections.
Haley Stevens’ Late Endorsement of Rogers
“Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said Nov. 1, the AP reported.
She’d lost the primary to El-Sayed, and she announced the endorsement after attending a service with Rogers at Perfecting Church in Detroit. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” she said.
Rogers said he was “honored” to have her support, the AP reported. “At the end of the day I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” El-Sayed said that day.
“I’m not turning my back on Democrats. It is this one vote,” Stevens said, according to the AP. Gayety’s coverage of her endorsement examines her LGBTQ+ rights record and the split with El-Sayed.
The First Muslim U.S. Senator
“To all the parents who struggled to explain why the president openly mocks someone for their name or how they pray, let them know tomorrow that the bad guys lost,” El-Sayed told cheering supporters in his victory speech, Al Jazeera reported. He also addressed Trump directly. “So after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on to call me ‘Senator’,” he said, referring to Vice President JD Vance.
The victory comes eight years after El-Sayed lost the 2018 Democratic primary for governor to Gretchen Whitmer. His Senate term begins at noon on Jan. 3, 2027, under the 20th Amendment.
Follow Gayety’s live LGBTQ+ election results for updates. Our Election Day guide covers the other races and ballot measures.
