The Republican Party has a new enemy in Michigan, and they really want you to know his name: Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.
El-Sayed, who won the Democratic primary for Senate this week, usually goes by the much simpler “Abdul El-Sayed,” or sometimes “Dr.
Abdul El-Sayed,” but it’s no mistake that immediately after his win, the National Republican Senatorial Committee reverted to using his full government name in all its first generation Egyptian-American glory. In doing so, the GOP is reverting to an old, familiar playbook: Islamophobia and fear.
On Tuesday, the NRSC sent out a fundraising blast calling El-Sayed “the most radical candidate in America,” using the full version of his name to drive their point home.
El-Sayed, for his part, expected this.
“I hope that they will,” El-Sayed told Semafor’s David Weigel back in June, when asked about Republicans weaponizing his Arabic name. “Yeah, my name is Abdul. I’ll say the whole thing: Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, and I want you to have health care, because you know what? Chances are, you probably had a doctor you trust with a name like mine.”
Other GOP organizations didn’t even bother to dog-whistle by conspicuous use of the longer version of El-Sayed’s name.
“An alliance of Communists and Islamists is taking control of the Democrat party,” the Senate Republican caucus posted on X.
For what it’s worth, El-Sayed is not a communist or an islamist. He has said explicitly that he believes in American capitalism, and despite his support from major left-wing figures like Hasan Piker, he is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Still, the GOP’s playbook of calling anything to the left of Ronald Reagan “communism” is tried and true. It remains to be seen how well that will stick to El-Sayed, despite how easy he is to lump into the loose block of other progressives and outspoken socialists who won on Tuesday night.
The GOP is certainly going to try to keep their base riled up against the specter of communism, using any national name they can summon.
“Democrats now openly express disdain for America and embrace the failed, dangerous, deadly path of COMMUNISM,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote. “We must take a stand and FIGHT to protect the greatest nation in the history of the world from being overrun by Mini Mamdanis.”
“Mini Mamdani” is perhaps the most egregious mischaracterization on that list, as Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, readily admitted. “He can lift a lot more than I can, and I think that we should give him his respect in that way,” Mamdani said on Tuesday.
The president himself also weighed in.
“Great news for the Republican Party. El-Sayed, a Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in his race with the Socialist,” Trump posted on TruthSocial. “Now, the Dumocrats crazy policies will only get worse!”
The Democrats, for their part, appear to be circling the wagons as quickly as possible. Despite a heavily contentious primary, major state and national figures like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Vice President Kamala Harris quickly endorsed El-Sayed. El-Sayed’s former opponents, Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, also gracefully fell in line, presenting a relatively united front behind El-Sayed as he enters a tossup general election race against, forgive me, a mini Trump Republican in former Rep. Mike Rogers.
Like Trump, Rogers has already shown a willingness to play fast and loose with the facts at hand, alleging in his first statement after the primary election that El-Sayed had supported the Muslim Brotherhood and misattributing the now-infamous “American deserved 9/11” quote — said by the leftists streamer Hasan Piker, who campaigned for El-Sayed — to El-Sayed himself.
El-Sayed is no stranger to Islamophobia, of course, but if there was any doubt on what the contours of the general election would be, it’s gone now. He’s up against an old foe, against old arguments, old bigotry, and old fears of brown men with long names. The question is whether Michigan — and American — voters will be swayed by bigoted arguments they’ve heard so many times before.
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