BREAKING: Abdul El-Sayed just won Michigan’s Senate race, then trolled JD Vance and Donald Trump in his victory speech
Abdul El-Sayed spent the last week being attacked by Trump, abandoned by a fellow Democrat and dismissed as too extreme. On Election Night, Michigan voters sent him to the Senate, and he had some things to say about it
El-Sayed went straight at the vice president first. In his victory remarks, he told Vance, habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you’re constitutionally obligated to swear me in, in January.
Then he turned to Trump. He said, I know you struggle with my name, so after JD swears me in, you can just go on and call me Senator.
It’s the best line of the night, and it lands because of what came before it. According to Mediaite, Trump unloaded on El-Sayed in a frantic 1 a.m. Election Day post, claiming he hates Jews and hates Black people. Trump also praised Rep. Haley Stevens for what he called political courage after she endorsed Republican Mike Rogers two days before the election. Michigan Democratic Party leaders answered by saying Stevens was no longer part of the party, and said they stood united behind El-Sayed.
Bruce Springsteen backed El-Sayed the day before the election, calling him a fighter for the Constitution and democracy.
Voters had the final say. El-Sayed won in a state that, according to CNN, was one of the battlegrounds that decided control of the Senate, on a night when Democrats won the House and the Senate.
The attacks, the endorsement flip and the 1 a.m. posts didn’t stop him. He’s heading to the Senate, and the man who’ll swear him in is Vance.