El-Sayed tells AP Michigan rejected ‘hateful, spiteful campaign’ after months of Republican attacks

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El-Sayed tells AP Michigan rejected ‘hateful, spiteful campaign’ after months of Republican attacks

2026-11-05 05:32 Last Updated At：05:41

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Michigan voters had rejected “a hateful, spiteful campaign” after months of Republican attacks on his Muslim identity in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races.

El-Sayed said he was “running on adrenaline and caffeine” after his race with Republican Mike Rogers was called early Wednesday, giving Democrats another significant victory in a premier swing state as they won a substantial majority in the Senate in Tuesday’s midterms.

Throughout the cycle, Republicans sought to demonize El-Sayed, who was born in the U.S. after his parents immigrated from Egypt. President Donald Trump repeatedly called him a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists.”

“Michigan proved just how big we are. Rejected a hateful, spiteful campaign that had nothing to say about the issues and only wanted to point to my name and my face,” El-Sayed said. “Michiganders rejected that. Every single county, every single one, pushed against that.”

In a sign of how combative the race had become, Rogers and El-Sayed had not spoken as of Wednesday afternoon, even after Rogers issued a statement conceding the race. In 2024, Rogers called then-Rep. Elissa Slotkin to concede on Wednesday morning, before the AP had even called the race.

El-Sayed, who will become the nation’s first Muslim senator, told the AP by phone that the morning was “a moment of reflection,” including about what his victory would mean to his two young daughters. His 3-year-old, he said, has no idea what happened, while his 8-year-old understands but sees it as normal.

“Now, this is something they read about in the history books,” he said.

With approximately 97% of the vote in, El-Sayed held a 7 percentage point lead over Rogers. Every county in the state shifted toward Democrats compared with 2024, according to AP voting data.

The AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of more than 4,500 voters in Michigan, showed that Michigan Senate voters were roughly split on whether El-Sayed’s views were “too extreme,” with about half saying they were.

El-Sayed rose from a double-digit defeat eight years ago in the state's Democratic gubernatorial election to an upset victory of an establishment-backed candidate in the primary after being outspent by tens of millions. He said his campaign proved that “old-fashioned politics can work if you’re willing to do the work.”

El-Sayed quickly pivoted, though, toward the future, saying his victory is “not the success” and that “the success is what you're able to do with the seat.”

He would not commit to supporting Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer for another term, saying he did not yet know who else might run. Schumer is expected to retain the leadership position.

“I do believe we need new leadership and I think people are hungry for it,” El-Sayed added.

Associated Press reporter Linley Sanders contributed.

Trump brags about his White House ballroom and seeks to deflect blame for GOP midterm drubbing

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump reacted Wednesday to Republicans' midterm election losses by showing off the White House ballroom he's building as he demonstrated the kind of detached behavior that voters around the country said was a key reason they opted to punish his party.

In an extraordinary scene, Trump summoned reporters to the hulking construction site that he demolished the East Wing to make room for and the Republican president spoke for nearly 20 minutes about minute building details. He did not mention his party losing control of Congress after defeats in some of the country's deepest GOP strongholds, including Texas and South Carolina, or voter concerns about the high cost of living and federal corruption that helped cause the election losses.

“This has been a structure the likes of which has never been seen anywhere,” Trump said, speaking into a microphone that sent loud feedback echoing around the cavernous space.

He talked at length about how the ballroom would be the ”safest place in Washington" upon completion, stretching five stories underground and featuring a cut of marble that he called “a vein that people have been after for 50 years.”

“We have large staircases coming from the kitchen. If I put the kitchen on top, you would lose three walls, because a kitchen takes about 30% of the space,” Trump said of his choice to make the ballroom's kitchen subterranean.

“It’s going to be top of the line," he added.

Presidents usually speak with reporters the day after the midterms. It's normal for those whose party endured big losses to shoulder publicly at least part of the responsibility.

But not Trump.

He began the day with a schedule that showed only private meetings, then suggested he had decided at the last minute to invite the press to watch as the final steel beam — topped with a small evergreen tree symbolizing growth and luck — was hoisted into place on the ballroom roof.

Trump signed the beam with a marker during the ceremony, writing “Love!” followed by his name in supersize letters.

His appearance came after midterm voters said they thought the president was focused on the wrong issues. About two-thirds of voters said Trump does not have the right priorities, according to The AP Voter Poll, and the overwhelming majority of these voters supported Democratic House candidates.

The post-midterm ceremony might also reinforce voter concerns about whether Trump, 80, is up for the rigors of the presidency.

Biden dropped out of his reelection race in 2024 after a disastrous debate with Trump, who even today frequently mocks Biden's mental and physical acuity.

Trump eventually took questions at the ballroom site and attempted to duck responsibility for the broad Republican losses. He insisted he didn't lead the party into an Election Day drubbing despite staging a flurry of rallies where he implored supporters to pretend that he was on the ballot.

"If I were on the ballot I would have won,” Trump insisted.

He said campaign rallies in mostly Republican states or conservative parts of more closely divided ones featured enthusiastic crowds “but we weren’t able to transfer love to the candidates.”

The beam-raising was not his first baffling political moment this week. On Monday, Trump gave his closing message of the midterm cycle in a long speech at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, shining a spotlight at a pivotal time on a project marred by algae, leaks and delays.

“I heard it was a very good speech, got great reviews,” he said on Wednesday.

An Associated Press analysis of the 39 Trump speeches and rallies that Trump staged between Sept. 1 and Election Day showed the president used phrasing suggesting he was on the ballot in 30 of them. In some addresses he returned to the subject more than once, though, meaning there were at least 40 instances where he appealed to voters to engage in that bit of make-believe.

But as the extent of his party's defeat became apparent on election night, Trump was deflecting blame.

“I don’t like to consider it a defeat for me. I wasn’t on the ballot,” he told Fox News Channel. Voters, he said, just “didn’t like the candidates” on the ballot. The Voter Poll suggests Trump himself was a drag on GOP politicians and that in some races, candidates were seen as too supportive of the unpopular president.

Trump has a long history of passing the buck, on issues large and small, especially when there are ballot-box failures.

After Republicans lost the House in the 2018 midterms during Trump's first term, he blamed defeated members of his own party.

Utah Rep. Mia Love, who had tried to distance herself from him, “gave me no love, but then she lost. Too bad," the president said, while also mocking other losing lawmakers for not embracing him — Florida's Carlos Curbelo, Colorado's Mike Coffman, Virginia's Barbara Comstock, and Illinois' Peter Roskam.

That's in contrast to how Democrat Barack Obama described his party's losses in 2010 as “a shellacking" or Republican George W. Bush described Democratic victories in the 2006 midterms as “a thumping.”

But Trump, known for defying all kinds of presidential norms, began laying the groundwork for avoiding blame this cycle well before balloting began.

He told Punchbowl News in August that voters were angry at Republicans “but they’re not angry at me.”

The president posted on his social media site last month that should Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton lose — and he did — "it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove.” That's despite Trump's risky endorsement of scandal-marred Paxton in the primary over incumbent Cornyn, who first got to the Senate in 2002 and was considered the safer bet. Rove is a political strategist who helped Bush win the White House.

Also losing Tuesday was Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a longtime Trump ally.

Trump posted on social media that if Abbott “hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost," suggesting the governor had backed away from his staunchly conservative credentials and become “Republican in Name Only.”

Associated Press writers Amelia Thomson DeVeaux, Linley Sanders, Josh Boak and Aaron Kessler contributed to this report.

El-Sayed tells AP Michigan rejected ‘hateful, spiteful campaign’ after months of Republican attacks

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El-Sayed tells AP Michigan rejected ‘hateful, spiteful campaign’ after months of Republican attacks

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