The acrimonious Democratic primary contest in Michigan is over: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed will move on to face the Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers this November for a must-win seat in controlling the US Senate.

Al-Sayed’s victory, as the first Muslim major-party Senate nominee, is historic for Muslim Americans. But the race also pitted various constituencies of the Democratic base against each other, and set the Democratic establishment and heavy AIPAC spending against El-Sayed, a progressive political newcomer.

To get a better sense of the significance of this moment, and to get an on-the-ground perspective of the repairing of bonds that Democrats must now do to prepare for the general election, I turned to another trailblazer: Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan.

In 2023, Dearborn became the first majority-Arab American city, and a large percentage of its residents are Muslim. Hammoud was the first of both communities to be elected mayor. He has long been on the front lines of how these communities engage with, or feel left out of, the Democratic Party. He was a prominent voice of the Uncommitted movement back in 2024 which urged people to vote “uncommitted” in Democratic primaries in 2024 in protest of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Gaza war. That issue pushed many residents out of the party. Later that year, Dearborn, along with Michigan, shifted right, with Donald Trump winning a plurality of the city’s vote and contributing to former Vice President Kamala Harris’s eventual loss.

Two years later, things are very different, he told me. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You endorsed and campaigned for Abdul El-Sayed. How are you feeling today, and how is your community feeling?

Many of us are feeling exhausted because we haven’t slept. But what I can tell you, honestly, is that many people are feeling hopeful. In addition to, obviously, the outcome of the elections yesterday up and down the ballot, what was hopeful this morning is just seeing the whole party come together.

So kudos to Congresswoman [Haley] Stevens, to state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, to Curtis Hertel, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, for announcing right away that we know what we’re facing down in November, we have a lot more that we agree about than we disagree about; it’s time to come together and continue marching forward and to build this momentum and this movement.

But I think overall, people are just feeling inspired. I’m out and about today, and a lot of people are just approaching, talking about how hopeful they are.

How much of that hopefulness is about the possibility of El-Sayed making history as a Muslim American in the Senate?

Listen, most certainly I’m not going to take away the significance of a potential first. And as a fellow Abdul — I mean, Abdul is just short for all of our full names — it’s beautiful to see a son of Michigan who’s authentically himself, welcomed and uplifted by the people of Michigan. What is more American than that? That you’re willing to support a candidate regardless of the direction in which they pray, because of the direction in which they lead? And that is the American story.

I’m wondering, are you worried at all about the spotlight that this has all brought, or fearful about more ugliness? Already the GOP is trafficking in Islamophobia: Mike Rogers tweeted out that he’s going to save Michigan from El-Sayed, just as when he went after terrorists.

The ugliness and the Islamophobia and the bigotry is not going to be anything new. Keep in mind, what did they do to our first Black president, whose middle name happened to be Hussein? How much Islamophobia was thrown out there at the idea that he may have been Muslim? 

And when we’ve had women run for office, whether it was Secretary Clinton or Vice President Harris, you saw the sexism come out. Time and time again, regardless of who you have at bat, this type of hateful rhetoric always seems to emerge. And unfortunately, the algorithms seem to promote it. 

That’s honestly what’s most problematic: a lot of the rhetoric you do hear online, it’s fake accounts, it’s bots, and it’s because these social media owners and operators, these conglomerates and these monoliths, are so afraid of the president that they’re unwilling to have a check on hate speech. Rather than focus on the hate, again, people feel hopeful because you have candidates who are authentically themselves, who are not only welcomed and accepted, but uplifted and supported. And it’s because they spoke to a set of values that people of all faiths, of all backgrounds, of all ethnicities, of multi-generational, multi-ethnic coalitions that were constructed, all share. And they’re a set of values that we want to apply globally and they’re not exclusionary.

A lot of money was spent on painting an educated, kind man as misogynistic, who is married to a far smarter physician, who is the father of two young daughters. And I’m a girl dad myself, married to a far smarter physician. But stereotypes, they get acted on for the purposes of immediate political satisfaction…there will be some carryover as a result, with Republicans now utilizing those stereotypes, trying to cast fear because of Abdul’s name, Abdulrahman. They tweeted out his full name. He’s Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, I’m Abdullah Hussein Hammoud, so unfortunately that will happen. But again, I choose to believe that people are bigger than the naysayers and people are bigger than all the negativity.

Was there anything about El-Sayed’s contest that reminded you of your own run for mayor?

Obviously my race was far smaller. And I’m in the city of Dearborn, where people expect somebody with a name like mine to come to office, although we were the first at the time. I’ll tell you, even then in that race, in a city like Dearborn, there was a lot of rhetoric that said Hammoud could be the mayor for some, but not the mayor for all.

And you hear that underlying nature with the Mike Rogers attack ads, with the Republican Senate campaign coming out and saying, look at his full name. 

What is wrong with that full name? It’s a beautifully American name. And so yes, there are similarities in that sense, similarities in other candidates who were the first who rose to power. 

What surprised you about this primary? 

On the ground, we felt like there was a lot of momentum. And obviously I’m talking about the city of Dearborn, and obviously El-Sayed took nearly 80 percent of the vote here.

I would say that this election was also a stark reminder that people are hungry for a politics that answers to working families, not to corporate PACs and special interests. And the influence of big money has too often drowned out the voices of everyday people. And so, it’s beautiful to see that there’s an opportunity to restore a government that works for those it was meant to serve. And I think that is an underlying story that is foundational to the campaigns we’re seeing not only in Michigan, not only in the US Senate race, but in campaigns all across this country. It’s the mini versus the money, as Abdul would say.

How have things changed since 2024? Trump made major inroads with Muslim and Arab American communities back then — how does it feel now?

What’s changed are candidates who are trying to build authentic connections with people on the ground on a set of values and ideals that we can all corral around, versus in 2024, just being told that, well, the other candidate is worse.

Everybody knows what Abdul’s platform is. And remember, people in Dearborn didn’t vote for Abdul because he’s Muslim. They voted for Abdul because he showed up, he knocked on the doors, he went to places of worship. He canvassed and rallied. He had an agenda that wanted to tackle the main issues that so many working families are facing, economic issues. 

And obviously in ’24, slightly different, but I would say that people did not feel heard in 2024. And yes, Trump came to the City of Dearborn. I rejected meeting with Trump. I spoke to the threat that Donald Trump presented, to unravel the very fabric of America, and we see that happening each and every single day. But unfortunately at that time, the [Democratic] party was not willing to move. And I think there were lessons happening in that election, and I think we’re kind of seeing that play out right now.

You were a pretty vocal leader of the Uncommitted movement back then. My colleague Astead Herndon recently made the case that El-Sayed’s campaign has its roots in this movement, and in some way his victory came about because of those 2024 efforts. I’m wondering if you agree, or how you think about that legacy.

For me, getting 100,000 votes for Uncommitted, I don’t categorize it personally as victories. For me, it was, can you demonstrate that children being blown up in their homes or in their schools, or in hospitals being bulldozed, that these are things that universally we as human beings should all be opposed to? And you saw a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-faith coalition be constructed around that.

It wasn’t an Arab, a Muslim issue. And in this election, what I see is that that coalition grew.

We’re still seeing atrocities unfold, but what is beautiful is people are bold enough, daring enough to come forward now and say, “Hey, why send our tax dollars for death and destruction when we need to build and uplift and support working families here?” Blind to who is being killed or murdered. And I think that’s ultimately what we were trying to achieve. 

The Uncommitted movement was an anti-war coalition, a pro-justice movement. And I think that’s what you’re seeing manifest in these candidates on the ground. And so I don’t like to consider anything a mere victory. It’s one election. We’re in another election right now. And ultimately victory is when working families feel seen, feel heard, and when policies change to change their lives for the better.

That is victory and that has yet to happen.

You mention this multi-ethnic, multi-faith coalition. I’m wondering if there have been any constructive interfaith conversations you’ve heard, or had, in this primary.

We worked a lot with organizers on the ground when they asked us, how do you mobilize and canvass in cities like Dearborn? And we told them, it’s not the traditional sense where you send out a text message or do phone banking. You got to show up. You got to be seen in community with them. 

We believe in authentic relationships. And I think that the same is true about many communities where they don’t want you to show up just during election time. And so I think the coalition-building and the community-building has been happening for quite some time between myself and my residents, obviously.

We educated them; when we did do canvassing, I gave them the tips about the cultural norms, the greetings. Don’t jump right into politics. Ask somebody: What do they care about? Find the issue that matters to them and try to uplift that somehow and speak to that. Show up multiple times. “Oh, I appreciate you passing by a place of worship once.” It’s not enough. You should be there every single week, if you authentically mean and stand by the idea that you want this community to support you. What are you doing today? Today’s the day after the election — are you coming back?

It was a pretty bitter race at times, particularly on the Israel and Palestine question. Lots of attempts were made by Republicans and Democrats to drive a wedge between Muslim and Jewish voters both in Michigan and in other races around the country. What’s it going to take to rebuild trust, to repair relationships? 

Prior to the genocide in Gaza, there’s been strong relationships between the Jewish community, the Muslim community and the Arab communities. The City of Dearborn is a city that uplifted its Jewish uncle Bernie Sanders twice in the presidential election. I personally endorsed Andy Levin when he first ran for Congress against Congresswoman Haley Stevens. We’re in contact. 

I’ve worked with Jewish Voice for Peace (the pro-Palestinian national Jewish activist organization) for several years now. We just put up the Wall of Tears mural in the City of Dearborn, which highlights the nearly 20,000 children in Gaza that have been killed. They brought the idea forward to work with us. 

Sometimes the media likes to speak to a relationship that is fraught with many issues. The reality is we know that antisemitism and Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment are one and the same. When you see a rise in one, you see a rise in the other, and we have to counteract all this together. And we have to distinguish between criticism of a government and criticism of a people.

Editor’s note, Aug. 5, 6:20 am ET: Kansas voters rejected a proposed amendment to change how state supreme court justices are selected. This piece below was originally published on August 4.

Four years after the Dobbs decision, abortion battles have largely taken a backseat in national news to other policy fights this cycle. Leaders in the anti-abortion movement say they’re disillusioned with President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to push for further restrictions. The federal battle over access to abortion medication seems to be settled — for now. Public awareness of that fight is limited, and even at the state level, a couple years have passed since the high-pitched but successful state-level efforts to protect abortion access in red states.

Yet a little-known battle has been playing out in Kansas, where a ballot measure to change the way state supreme court justices are selected serves as a reminder that these fights over abortion are still active, even if they take the form of creative procedural and administrative efforts. 

If it succeeds, opponents say, it would open the floodgates for similar efforts in other states to politicize the remaining independent state courts (13 other states use a method similar to Kansas) and provide a road map to undoing abortion protections in other states that have safeguarded them.

On Tuesday, Kansans are deciding whether to change the way judges on the state’s highest court are selected. Up until now, judges were selected through a nonpartisan merit-based system: When a spot opens on the bench, a nine-member commission submits a list to the governor, who then selects a replacement.

The referendum would replace this system with direct, partisan elections of judges, like any other politician. Proponents say it’s a democratic move, a way to better express the will of voters over “unelected” bureaucrats. Yet critics say it’s first and foremost about restricting abortion rights — which both the court and voters have rejected.

How Kansas became an abortion rights flashpoint

In 2019, the state supreme court recognized the right to abortion in the state constitution; three years later, after Dobbs, voters rejected a Republican-championed proposal to overturn that ruling, choosing to preserve abortion rights by a 59-41 margin in a deeply red state.

It was after that failed vote in 2022 that then-state attorney general Republican candidate Kris Kobach outlined a new strategy for undoing these protections: changing the way the supreme court is selected, electing anti-abortion candidates, and “slowly and quietly” overturning the 2019 decision and 2022 vote.

“If you look at the various proposals, one of the proposals that is crystal clear is allowing people to popularly elect justices to the supreme court, which is the most common system among all of the states in the country,” Kobach said in 2022.

He’s a bit more careful talking about this in 2026: “There is a real desire to bring back some accountability to the judiciary,” he told the New York Times this week. “It’s not just about abortion.”

Tuesday’s results would have huge ramifications, critics said, given that nonelected state courts have been a final bulwark against Republican supermajorities and governors in red states. Kansas has been an island for abortion access for women in the South and central US since the Dobbs decision.

The victory in 2022 also inspired abortion rights advocates to try to use ballot measures to enshrine these protections in about a dozen other states, which successfully overturned abortion bans in Missouri and Ohio. State courts in Utah and Wyoming, meanwhile, blocked bans.

The next frontier in the abortion wars

These independent checks on power have been under attack for years, Michael Milov-Cordoba, a court expert and counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s judiciary program, told me. 

“State legislators across the country are increasingly trying to undermine those courts. … That retaliation takes a few different forms, but changing how judges are selected is top of the list,” Milov-Cordoba said. “And what we’ve seen is that in many states where courts stand up for abortion rights and strike down abortion restrictions, efforts to change state judiciaries have followed.”

He noted the complete reworking of the Utah supreme court in the last year, including by expanding and packing it. Similar retooling of the state supreme court happened in Iowa in 2022. Montana is likely the next battleground, where Republican legislators are exploring various avenues to strip or limit the state supreme court’s powers. That in turn has led the ACLU to get involved to boost a constitutional amendment this year that would preserve the nonpartisan status of judicial elections.

And in recent years, state supreme court elections have been inundated with spending and attention from both in- and out-of-state backers. Last year’s Wisconsin judicial election, for example, became the most expensive race of its kind in US history, with more than $100 million spent — just two years after a contest for a different seat on the state supreme court had set its own record at more than $50 million spent.

“If these courts become partisan, then they will be just like any other election fight — subject to being bought and sold by billionaire political funders,” Deirdre Schifeling, the chief political and advocacy officer at the ACLU, told me. “They become a race to the bottom … and [Republicans] are finding backdoor ways to seize power to push their ideological agenda.”

Already, Kansas has seen heavy spending: More than $12 million have been spent from both sides, including about $5 million from the ACLU, Schifeling told me.

”Everyone’s focused on the Michigan Senate race, other kind of big-ticket, sexy elections,” Schifeling said. “Well, this is just as important and much more under the radar. Without a balanced court, we are going to lose rights and liberties across the board in a state like Kansas.”