Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who participated in anti-Israel protests at Columbia, attended El-Sayed’s watch party.
Detroit — Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed struck a defiant tone in a speech to supporters after capping off Tuesday night’s blue wave with a win over Republican incumbent Mike Rogers in what was perhaps the most closely watched Senate race in the country.
In his 20-minute victory speech, the upstart progressive extended no olive branch to Republicans, instead gloating and mocking Rogers, Vice President JD Vance and Trump, the last of whom often mocked his name.
“JD, habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you’re constitutionally obligated to swear me in January,” El-Sayed said.
El-Sayed had especially harsh words for Rogers. “You chose hate, and Michigan chose hope,” he said. “May we never have to see the likes of you in this state again.”
Though his supporters’ energy depleted as Tuesday night turned into Wednesday morning, their joy did not fade, as they were aided by a DJ, a well-stocked bar, and results that showed Democrats slaughtering Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.
Eventually, election trackers called the race for El-Sayed, and he addressed the crowd, contributing to a historic night for Democrats that will help them keep the Senate for several years into the future.
“You showed that in the battle between the money and the many, that the many really can win,” he told attendees.
El-Sayed’s victory caps off a campaign that began as a relatively longshot progressive effort in the primary. But he was able to take advantage of the Democratic base’s dissatisfaction with party leadership to narrowly win the nomination. On Tuesday, he rode the blue wave of backlash to Trump and Republicans’ governing trifecta to win the Senate seat, which he is set to hold until at least the 2032 elections.
The question that remains is what Democrats learn from their huge victory. Parties can sometimes learn the wrong lessons from a good election and move hard to the left or right, risking the pendulum swinging the other direction.
After all, guests at El-Sayed’s watch party, hosted by the Michigan Democratic Party, included Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who participated in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University following the October 7 attacks and whom the Trump administration has attempted to deport on the grounds that he poses a threat to the foreign policy of the United States. When Khalil sought to adjust his status from student visa holder to permanent resident alien, he omitted his post as the political affairs officer for the Hamas-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
Speaking to National Review early Wednesday morning, he offered El-Sayed’s election as evidence that the pro-Palestinian movement is gaining traction.
“We can see Abdul, we can see other politicians in the country, but also on the wider thing, which is, I think, much more important, it’s a proof that being pro-Palestine is not a liability,” Khalil said. “It might be actually an advantage.”
But Khalil has repeatedly been asked to condemn Hamas and refused to do so. While he condemns the killing of civilians broadly, he will not specifically denounce the terror group.
“This question is being used as sort of like a litmus test in a way that people are not interested in my views about Hamas,” he said. “They are just asking that, ‘yes or no,’ as black and white.”
Some Democrats are encouraging their party to take full advantage of the power they have gained.
“The lesson is, we got to go big,” State Senator Mallory McMorrow, who ran for the Democratic nomination for Senate but dropped out before the primary ended, told NR. “I think that people are tired of nibbling around the edges. I spent close to two years on the campaign trail talking to people in every corner of Michigan, and there was this deep sense that all of it is broken.” She noted, however, that “going big” does not necessarily mean “flanking all the way to the left.”
But there is a share of El-Sayed’s supporters who are urging caution.
“They have to govern,” Frank Burger, a Michigan teachers union member, told NR. “Don’t worry about impeachment of the president or anybody else. Govern and lead this nation because that’s the mandate of the voters. The voters are fed up with what’s going on in this country.”
Abid Zaidi, who flew in from Seattle to help knock doors for Michigan Democrats, expressed a similar sentiment.
“Stay humble and stay connected to their voters,” Zaidi said when asked what lesson Democrats should learn from the results. “And have a very clear, simple message.”
Zaidi was cognizant of the possibility that Democrats’ victory could embolden them to lurch too far to the left, and he encouraged them not to take such a course.
“They should learn from others’ mistakes,” he told NR.