Abdul El-Sayed and Melat Kiros prove identity attacks fail

By Daniel Okafor · Reporting from New York ·

The election of candidates with African roots shows that voters prioritize material needs over the identity-based smears used by Donald Trump and conservative media.

Donald Trump and the conservative media are wrong. They believed that accusations of foreign loyalty and religious extremism could disqualify candidates with African roots. They used the Muslim Brotherhood as a weapon to frighten voters in Michigan and beyond. The results of the midterms prove that these smears no longer work. Voters did not choose based on the identity of the candidate, but on the needs of the district.

Smears do not win Senate seats

Abdul El-Sayed is 42 years old. He won Michigan's Senate race and becomes the first Muslim senator in US history. According to the BBC, El-Sayed is the son of Egyptian immigrant parents. He holds a PhD in public health from Oxford and a medical degree from Columbia University. He served as a public health administrator in Detroit and Wayne County.

During the race, Donald Trump and Mike Rogers attacked El-Sayed. They accused him of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. Republicans claimed he was sympathetic to interests connected to Islamic terror.

The ablest advocate for the Republican side would argue these were not identity attacks. They would say the concerns were about national security and the legitimacy of El-Sayed's ties. However, the evidence fails. Mike Rogers made these claims without evidence. El-Sayed rejected the allegations. He called the race "one of the ugliest campaigns we’ve seen in our lifetimes," according to CNN. The voters of Michigan chose his progressive agenda of affordable housing and Medicare for All over the smears.

A mandate born from a firing

In Colorado, Melat Kiros is 29 years old. She is the first Gen Z woman elected to the US Congress. Born in Ethiopia and raised in Denver, Kiros is a lawyer and a democratic socialist.

A New York law firm fired Kiros in 2023. She refused to remove an open letter that urged law school deans to crack down on antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests. Kiros warned that firms should not conflate bigotry with the question of Israel's legitimacy. She later worked as a barista at Whittier Cafe while studying for a PhD.

Kiros defeated a 15-term incumbent in the Democrat primary. She won the general election with 78.3 percent of the vote. Her campaign focused on the cost of living and universal childcare. Kiros proved that a candidate can lose a corporate job and still win a landslide.

The new guard in Maryland

Adrian Boafo is a second-generation Ghanaian-American. Boafo will represent Maryland's 5th Congressional District. He succeeds Steny Hoyer, who retired after more than four decades in office.

Boafo served on the Bowie City Council and as a Maryland state delegate. He worked for Hoyer before running for the seat. His campaign focused on protecting federal workers and the cost of living. Boafo said representing his constituents "never felt more urgent" because of federal job cuts and immigration crackdowns.

This mirrors the Election of Shirley Chisholm. Both events share the same mechanism: marginalized groups break historic barriers to enter the US legislative branch through representative politics. This pattern follows the 2008 United States presidential election, where a candidate with African roots achieved a historic first.

A pattern of representation

The wins of El-Sayed, Kiros, and Boafo are not isolated. Ilhan Omar won a fifth term in Congress. Junior Ezeonu, born in Nigeria, won a seat in the Texas State House. Carol Kazeem retained her seat as a Pennsylvania state legislator. At least four candidates with Nigerian heritage won in the midterms.

The long record shows that US politics moves toward inclusion when candidates link their identity to material results. The electorate did not reject the "outsider" status of these candidates. Instead, they rejected the incumbents and the smears. This trend will likely extend beyond US borders, as major elections are due in Nigeria and Kenya in 2027.

The facts suggest a new legislative reality. Abdul El-Sayed will likely face Senate ethics inquiries regarding his past public health appointments. Melat Kiros will likely introduce labor legislation to protect employee speech in corporate law firms. These candidates did not win despite their backgrounds, but because they used those backgrounds to speak for people the system ignored. The identity war is over, and the smears lost.

Sources

  1. BBC: Abdul El-Sayed, Melat Kiros, Adrian Boafo: The politicians with African roots making history in the US midterms
  2. The Guardian: Ten historic firsts: the winning US midterm candidates making waves
  3. CNN: The historic firsts of the 2026 election
  4. BBC: The young politicians with African roots making history in the US midterms