America edges towards first Muslim Senator as Michigan backs progressive rebel

TOI correspondent from Washington: The United States is edging towards its first ever Muslim Senator after Abdul El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American physician, Rhodes scholar, podcaster and progressive insurgent, defeated the Democratic establishment backed four-term Representative Haley Stevens in one of the most closely watched and bitterly fought primaries of the 2026 election cycle. If he goes on to defeat Republican Mike Rogers in November, El-Sayed will break one of the last symbolic barriers in American politics, which has not seen a Muslim elected to the Senate in the 250 years after the republic's founding.El-Sayed victory, coming amid a MAGA-infused America, is about much more than Michigan; it is another unmistakable sign that even the Democratic Party's restless grassroots increasingly resembles an unruly family reunion where the children have wrestled the remote control away from the parents.