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Lacrosse captain, Rhodes Scholar, Detroit's health chief: 8 things to know about Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed
Michigan's new senator is a doctor and epidemiologist who once got a yellow card in an Oxford varsity final.
Abdul El-Sayed beat Republican Mike Rogers 52.5% to 45.5% and will be the first Muslim American elected to the U.S. Senate. He's a physician and epidemiologist who ran Detroit's health department at 30 and later led Wayne County's.
El-Sayed won Michigan's Senate seat by 334,868 votes, 52.5% to 45.5%, and the race was called at 2:27 a.m. ET Wednesday, per Exa. Here's who he is, drawn from his public biography on Wikipedia unless noted otherwise.
1. He's a Michigan kid
He was born Oct. 31, 1984, in Rochester Hills, outside Detroit, to Egyptian immigrant parents, and grew up in southeast Michigan.
2. Three-sport captain
At Bloomfield Hills Andover High School he captained the wrestling, football and lacrosse teams.
3. A Bill Clinton nudge
He gave the student commencement speech at the University of Michigan in 2007. He has said Bill Clinton, the keynote speaker, encouraged him afterward to consider public service.
4. Rhodes Scholar with a yellow card
At Oxford he earned a doctorate in public health in 2011. He captained the men's lacrosse team and earned a full blue, though he took a yellow card in the varsity final. In his Rhodes application he wrote: "My religion teaches that if one saves a life, she has saved all of humanity".
5. Doctor and professor
He got his M.D. from Columbia in 2014 and taught epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.
6. Detroit's youngest health chief
In 2015, Mayor Mike Duggan named him head of the Detroit Health Department. At 30, he was the youngest health officer in a major U.S. city at the time. He rebuilt the department after the city's bankruptcy and tested schools for lead after the Flint water crisis.
7. A podcaster and a debt-killer
Since 2019 he has hosted the Crooked Media podcast "America Dissected." As Wayne County's health director, he launched a program to buy and erase up to $700 million in medical debt for about 300,000 residents.
8. Second try, history made
He lost a 2018 run for governor. This year he beat Rep. Haley Stevens in the primary and then Rogers. The Guardian and NBC News report he will be the first Muslim U.S. senator.
Sources
- 2026 Michigan U.S. Senate Class II general election results — Exa Election Library
- Progressive Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate race to become first Muslim US senator — The Guardian
- Democrat Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan's high-stakes Senate race — NBC News
- Abdul El-Sayed — Wikipedia