Michigan Muslims helped elect Trump. Now their faith is under fire

I'm in Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of America's largest Muslim communities and a major force in a consequential swing state. State. Now, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed could end up becoming the first Muslim senator ever. He's talking affordability, getting big money out of politics, and pushing for an arms embargo on Israel. Yet his opponents keep falling back on questioning his faith. Abdul El-Sayed is funded by people who finance Hamas. His family has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Abdul publicly supported these terrorists, and they publicly supported his primary win. I'm here to keep a jihadist... Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States Senator. Al-Sayed has pushed back, drawing parallels with John F. Kennedy, who faced questions over whether his Catholic faith would affect his loyalty to the U.S. Just as Kennedy wasn't running to be a Catholic president, Al-Sayed said he isn't running to be a Muslim senator. I know that our kids have seen the ugliest things said about our faith, about our prophet, simply because I shared his name. Those are the ugliest things. He chose to insult, and what do we do next? We chose to lift our voices, to uplift our country, to show what it means to be a bigger America. For Muslim Americans, what does that feel like when politicians like Rogers claim your faith somehow makes you un-American? Do you pull back or step in louder? They put so much pressure on us and make us think we're terrible humans but in reality we're not. This is a highly motivated community who is going to go out there and vote and make sure their voice is heard because that is a right that is given to all of us protected by the constitution as American citizens. No matter No matter how bad the rhetoric coming from outside, no matter how incendiary, The rhetoric is they continue to push and to assert their identity as Muslim Americans and as their identity as Americans. In 2024, the Democrats lost ground in Michigan because voters were angered by Joe Biden's support for Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. That helped Donald Trump win in the state, which many are regretting as Trump's war on Iran, waged alongside Israel, has made the cost of living spike for ordinary Americans. I feel like that President Trump campaigned on peace, no wars, and he betrayed, he betrayed us. Duals race, ethnicity, his religion is not raising the gas prices. See, when people often ask me, what are the issues that impact the Arab and the Muslim community? I say it's the same issues that every American really cares about. Here in Dearborn, Muslim Americans know the power of their vote. For a community that helped deliver a political upset in 2024, the question now is whether that same voting power will shape the next chapter of American politics.