Michigan elects El-Sayed after a campaign fought over Brotherhood ties no outlet could document

Abdul El-Sayed, 42, a Democrat and former Michigan health official, defeated Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s open Senate race on Tuesday 3 November, becoming the first Muslim elected to the US Senate; AP called the race and CBS and NBC projected independently, with Al Jazeera reporting the win helps Democrats regain Senate control. Rogers, a former House Intelligence Committee chairman, alleged during the campaign that El-Sayed had “pledged his support to the Muslim Brotherhood,” in Breitbart’s characterisation. President Donald Trump called him a Brotherhood member at a Michigan rally nine days before the vote and, per Al Jazeera Arabic, made a similar claim about the candidate, his sister and his mother at a Kansas rally; TIME describes the claim as baseless. Senator Ted Cruz called him a “jihadist.” El-Sayed told Fox News: “I have never been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, I never will be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Bridge Michigan reported it found no evidence of ties.

The claims that outlived the campaign are thinner than the campaign was. Breitbart reported on 4 November that Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardiri, a former spokesman for the Brotherhood’s Egyptian political party, hailed the win as a model — but attributed it to pro-Israel writer Eitan Fischberger rather than its own reporting, and the original statement has not been located. A funding-chain claim from the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, built with Canary Mission and relayed by HotAir, cites no verified dollar figures or FEC filings. Dalia Ziada of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy told i24News that El-Sayed represents “Islamists without Islamism… People who look secular, who look modern, who do not necessarily have the label of being a political Islamist… but they are working on advancing the goals of and objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood.” ISGAP is the same body that called on the EU Council to list the network after the European Parliament’s non-binding 8 October resolution, carried 381 to 167 with 15 abstentions.

The legal architecture behind the rhetoric has not moved since March. Executive Order 14362, signed 24 November 2025, designates nobody; it sets a process and names Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. State designated the Lebanese Brotherhood as an FTO and SDGT on 13 January 2026, with Treasury designating the Egyptian and Jordanian chapters as SDGTs for material support to Hamas, in what Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort”; the Sudanese Islamic Movement followed in March. Acting General Guide Salah Abdel Haq told Al Jazeera the group “categorically rejects this designation and will pursue all legal avenues” — ten months on, no filing has been reported. The forcing mechanism now is S.2293, Cruz’s Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, which would require the President to designate the group as an FTO.

Assessment: The designation fight has completed a round trip. An instrument built in Cairo and Amman to criminalise a domestic opposition was adopted by Washington as counterterrorism policy, and this cycle it was spent as an electoral attack on an American candidate — and lost. New Lines Magazine’s point is the one to hold: El-Sayed has said he would push to end US military funding to Egypt, which is a policy dispute the label is being used to conduct. Watch two things. Cruz’s bill now faces a Senate that has changed hands, which makes executive action under EO 14362 the likelier route. And watch whether anyone ever produces al-Dardiri’s original post, or the FEC numbers. Claims about claims do not become evidence by circulating.