Senator-Elect Abdul El-Sayed Wins Michigan Race Without Throwing Transgender People Under the Bus

This story originally appeared on The Advocate.Michigan voters have elected Abdul El-Sayed to the U.S. Senate, making him the first Muslim elected to the chamber after a campaign in which he defended transgender patients, challenged Republican attacks on their health care and weathered a last-minute defection by his former Democratic primary rival.El-Sayed defeated Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, according to Decision Desk HQ, which called the race at 1:33 a.m. Wednesday. With 77 percent of votes counted, El-Sayed led Rogers 50.74 percent to 47.29 percent. He will succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, keeping the seat in Democratic hands.The victory followed a closing stretch in which El-Sayed continued defending LGBTQ+ rights under pointed questioning about his Muslim faith and progressive politics.In a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday, conservative columnist Ross Douthat asked whether those commitments were in tension. El-Sayed framed his position around constitutional protections, arguing that people must defend freedoms even when they would never exercise those freedoms themselves.“I will always fight for the ability to make choices, to live who you are,” El-Sayed said.He described building connections between Michigan’s Muslim and LGBTQ+ communities around that principle: Allowing government to strip one group of its rights endangers others. When Douthat suggested that rights conflict over transgender athletes’ participation in sports, El-Sayed questioned that premise and argued that such social conflicts are manufactured.Related: Abdul El-Sayed sticks up for trans rights in heated ‘60 Minutes’ interview ahead of midtermsHis win also came despite Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers two days before the election. Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the primary, appeared with Rogers at Detroit’s Perfecting Church, a Black church, handing Republicans a prominent endorsement and campaign photograph.Stevens cited