Abdul El-Sayed beat former Rep. Mike Rogers to hold Michigan’s open Senate seat for Democrats — and becomes the first Muslim American elected to the U.S. Senate. The AP called the race at 2:27 a.m. ET.
Abdul El-Sayed is a doctor who ran a big city’s health department at 30. The son of Egyptian immigrants, he earned a doctorate in public health from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a medical degree from Columbia.
From 2015 to 2017 he was Detroit’s health director, the youngest health officer of any major American city. He later ran Wayne County’s health and human services department, from late 2022 to April 2025.
This was not his first statewide run. In 2018 he ran for governor and finished second to Gretchen Whitmer in the Democratic primary. This year he beat Rep. Haley Stevens in the primary, then faced Mike Rogers, who had lost a close Senate race in 2024 and came back to try again for the seat Sen. Gary Peters gave up.
El-Sayed, 42, takes office as the first Muslim American ever elected to the Senate. Watch how a public-health doctor shapes the Senate’s health care fights.
Fast facts
- Age: 42
- Party: Democratic
- Office: U.S. Senator
- State: Michigan
- Previous job: Director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services
- Called by AP: 2:27 a.m. ET, Nov. 4, 2026
Part of the Zark News Election 2026 winners profile series. Winners are listed as called by the Associated Press.
