Michigan Democrat El-Sayed Defends Muslim American Identity Amid Campaign

In Detroit, Abdul El-Sayed stood before a gathering of Muslim Americans and offered something rarer than a policy speech: an argument about who belongs. The 41-year-old Democratic Senate candidate used the Annual Islamic Society Conference to reject the premise that faith and citizenship are in tension, while pivoting toward a broader claim that the true fault lines in American life run not between religions, but between those whose needs are met and those whose are not. His campaign, navigating Islamophobia on one side and economic anxiety on the other, reflects a recurring American struggle