Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers on Tuesday, becoming the most radical candidate elected to the upper chamber in U.S. history. El-Sayed bested Rogers after a tumultuous campaign in which he embraced noxiously antisemitic podcasters, clerics, and donors.
El-Sayed carried 52 percent of the vote to Rogers's 46 percent when the race was called early Wednesday morning. His win is a major boost to the Democratic Party’s increasingly powerful anti-Israel faction and is likely to give a megaphone to the antisemitic and anti-Israel activists on the far left, for whom El-Sayed is likely to become a leading figure.
El-Sayed’s victory caps a turbulent race in which his primary opponent, Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, threw her support to Rogers two days before the election.