Abdulrahman Mohamed 'Abdul' El-Sayed: A Biography
Abdulrahman Mohamed "Abdul" El-Sayed (born October 31, 1984) is an American physician, epidemiologist, author and Democratic politician. A former health director for both the City of Detroit and Wayne County, he ran unsuccessfully for Michigan governor in 2018 before winning Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat on November 3, 2026. When he is sworn in in January 2027, he will be the first Muslim and the first Egyptian American to serve in the United States Senate.
Early life and family
El-Sayed was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan, a suburb north of Detroit. His father, Mohamed El-Sayed, grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, and came to the United States for graduate study at Wayne State University; his mother, Fatten El-Komy, later became a nurse practitioner. He was raised in metro Detroit largely by his father and his stepmother, Jacqueline (Johnson) El-Sayed, a native of rural Gratiot County. Both are engineers. The blended household of an Egyptian Muslim father and a Midwestern stepmother is something El-Sayed has often pointed to as shaping his sense of Michigan identity.
At Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills he was a three-sport athlete, captaining the wrestling, football and lacrosse teams, and graduated in 2003. He has recalled a coach telling him that his name would follow him for life, and that he could treat it as either an excuse or a motivation.
Education
El-Sayed studied biology and political science at the University of Michigan, played club lacrosse, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest distinction in 2007, delivering that year's commencement address. He then entered a combined M.D./Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan Medical School on a full-tuition scholarship.
In 2008, as a second-year medical student, he won a Rhodes Scholarship. At Oriel College, Oxford, he earned a doctorate in public health in 2011 and captained the university's men's lacrosse team. He then completed his medical degree at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2014. He chose not to pursue a residency and is not a licensed, practicing physician, a point opponents raised in later campaigns.
Academic career
In 2014 El-Sayed joined Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health as an assistant professor of epidemiology, where he directed research programs in systems science and population-health analytics. His research focused on health inequality and the social causes of disease, and he has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. With Sandro Galea he co-edited Systems Science and Population Health (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Detroit Health Department (2015–2017)
In August 2015, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan appointed El-Sayed health officer and executive director of the Detroit Health Department. At 30, he was described as the youngest health official of any major American city. His task was to rebuild a department whose public-health functions had been handed to a nonprofit around the time of the city's 2013 municipal bankruptcy.
During his tenure, the department:
• opposed increased sulfur dioxide emissions from Marathon Petroleum's southwest Detroit refinery;
• led lead testing of water in Detroit schools in the wake of the Flint water crisis;
• launched a program providing free eyeglasses to schoolchildren; and
• overhauled the city's troubled Animal Control division.
He also served on the state's Childhood Lead Elimination Board and Public Health Advisory Commission. Recognition from this period included Crain's Detroit Business "40 Under 40" and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters' Public Official of the Year (both 2016).
2018 campaign for governor
El-Sayed resigned from the health department and announced a run for governor in February 2017. Running as an unapologetic progressive, he refused corporate PAC money, raised more than $5 million from individual donors, and campaigned on single-payer health care for Michigan, clean water and environmental justice. He was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats, and drew national attention as a possible first Muslim governor.
In the August 7, 2018 Democratic primary he finished second with about 30 percent of the vote, well behind former state Senate leader Gretchen Whitmer, who went on to win the governorship. In September 2018 he founded Southpaw Michigan, a political action committee supporting progressive down-ballot candidates.
Author, broadcaster and public voice (2018–2023)
After the loss, El-Sayed built a national platform outside elected office:
• Podcast. Since 2019 he has hosted America Dissected, a Crooked Media podcast about the politics of public health, which became a widely followed source of commentary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Books. He wrote Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic (2020), framing political dysfunction in epidemiological terms, and co-wrote Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide (Oxford University Press, 2021) with Micah Johnson.
• Media and politics. He became a CNN commentator and a regular presence on YouTube and television, campaigned for Sanders in the 2020 primary, and served on the Biden–Sanders Unity Task Force on health care.
Wayne County (2023–2025)
In March 2023 El-Sayed returned to government as director of Wayne County's Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services, which serves Detroit and its surrounding communities. He resigned in April 2025 to run for the Senate.
2026 U.S. Senate campaign
Launch and primary
When Sen. Gary Peters announced in January 2025 that he would not seek a third term, El-Sayed entered the race on April 17, 2025, with an immediate endorsement from Bernie Sanders. He launched with a staff of four and campaigned on Medicare for All, cost of living, housing, medical debt relief and higher taxes on billionaires, while casting himself as a fighter against the Trump administration's cuts to federal health agencies. He pledged not to take PAC donations and later reported visiting 110 communities and holding more than 500 events.
The Democratic primary became one of the most-watched in the country. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign in July 2026, leaving a contest between El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens, who was backed by Gov. Whitmer, Sen. Peters and much of the party establishment, and supported by more than $10 million in spending from AIPAC. The race was shaped by debates over the Israel–Gaza war and by controversy over El-Sayed's campus appearances with streamer Hasan Piker, whose past comments El-Sayed said he did not fully share. In August he also apologized for remarks made after a March 2026 attack on Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, which critics had read as excusing the attack.
On August 4, 2026, El-Sayed narrowly won the primary, about 48.5 percent to 47.5 percent; the Associated Press called it the following morning. McMorrow endorsed him as results came in.
General election
In the general election he faced Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent endorsed by President Trump, who had narrowly lost Michigan's 2024 Senate race. Rogers portrayed El-Sayed as too extreme for a swing state and sought to tie him to the Muslim Brotherhood, a line many Democrats and religious leaders condemned as anti-Muslim; Trump himself questioned El-Sayed's loyalty late in the race. El-Sayed rejected the accusations and cast Rogers as a Trump-aligned Washington insider. Kamala Harris and Barack Obama campaigned for him, while Stevens, days before the election, endorsed Rogers.
On November 3, 2026, El-Sayed won. The Associated Press called the race early on November 4, with El-Sayed leading by roughly seven to eight points (about 52–53 percent to Rogers's 45–46 percent in the counts reported that day). His victory kept the seat in Democratic hands and made him the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Senate.
Political positions
El-Sayed describes himself as a progressive and frames politics through a public-health lens. His core positions include:
• Health care: single-payer Medicare for All, and relief of medical debt.
• Economy: higher taxes on extreme wealth, lower housing costs, and stronger labor protections.
• Environment: environmental justice, clean water and limits on industrial pollution, themes from his Detroit tenure.
• Foreign policy: sharp criticism of Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza; in an April 2026 interview, he called both Hamas and the Israeli government evil.
• Campaign finance: refusing corporate and PAC contributions.
Personal life
El-Sayed is Muslim. He has been married since 2006 to Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist; they live in Ann Arbor with their two daughters.
Selected works
• Systems Science and Population Health (co-editor with Sandro Galea), Oxford University Press, 2017
• Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, Abrams, 2020
• Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide (with Micah Johnson), Oxford University Press, 2021
• America Dissected (podcast host), Crooked Media, 2019–present
