By Umar Farooq
WASHINGTON (AA) – Democratic candidate Gretchen Whitmer upset progressive challenger Abdul El-Sayed during Tuesday's Michigan gubernatorial primary, setting the stage for a showdown with Republican candidate Bill Schuette in the general election.
Whitmer now takes her nearly decade-long experience in the Michigan senate, where she also served as the minority leader, into the race against Schuette.
But all eyes were focused on the intra-party dynamics on display during Tuesday night's Democratic primary.
Whitmer's Democratic challenger, political newcomer El-Sayed, was riding a wave of progressivism in the Democratic Party and had been endorsed by socialist titans Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders heading into Tuesday night.
He had hoped to be the first Muslim governor in U.S. history but ultimately failed to pass the primary threshold that would have taken him head-on against a Republican candidate.
El-Sayed, a doctor and Rhodes scholar, had been a part of a record number of Muslim- Americans running for political office this year since the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to Jetpac, an organization working to prepare Muslims for political campaigns. As many as 90 Muslim-Americans were running for some sort of political office ahead of the U.S.'s November midterm elections.
“We changed the conversation. We moved every bit of the conversation because we showed what it means to be honest, we showed what it means to run on our values, ” El-Sayed said in his concession speech.
Other Muslims running in the Michigan primaries included Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who was running for the House of Representatives in Michigan's 13th district, and fellow Democrat Fayrouz Saad, who was running in the 11th district. Neither race was close enough to call late into Tuesday night.
In Michigan's Republican primary, Schuette, the state's attorney general, came on top in a race of four, edging out Brian Calley, Patrick Colbeck and Jim Hines. The former two-term top state lawyer had been endorsed by President Donald Trump in the run-up to the election.
