America’s first Muslim senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has Karnataka family link

Abdul El-Sayed, who has become America's first Muslim Senator-elect after winning Michigan's US Senate race, shares an India connection through his wife, Dr Sarah Jukaku, whose family hails from Bhatkal in Karnataka's Uttara Kannada district. A physician and former public health official, El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers to succeed retiring Senator Gary Peters.

Washington:  Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democrat who won an open US Senate seat, will arrive in Washington with a family tie to coastal Karnataka.

His wife, psychiatrist Dr Sarah Jukaku, was born and raised in Michigan to Indian immigrant parents, whose family comes from Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district.

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El-Sayed, 42, a physician and former public health official, defeated former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers by about 52 per cent to 46 per cent with most of the vote counted.

He succeeds retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters.

In his victory speech, El-Sayed said: “They tried to confuse you, so let me just set the record straight. I love America.” Addressing Rogers, he said: “You chose hate, and Michigan chose hope.”

Jukaku’s family roots lie in Bhatkal, a town of about 46,000 people some 140 km north of Mangaluru. Her father, Dr Tayeb Jukaku, is a nephrologist from Bhatkal.

Her father sits on the board of CAIR-Michigan and served on a founders’ committee of the Islamic Society of North America. The family belongs to the Nawayath community, a Muslim merchant community on India’s southwest coast.

Her grandfather, lawyer J.H. Shamsuddin Jukaku, served as deputy finance minister in the former Mysore State government under Chief Minister B.D. Jatti.

Jukaku studied sociology and Near Eastern studies at the University of Michigan, earned a master’s degree at Oxford and a medical degree from Columbia. The couple met at the University of Michigan through the Muslim Students’ Association and married in 2006.

They have two daughters.

El-Sayed’s family became a campaign issue through a running feud with Vice President J.D. Vance, whose wife, Usha Vance, is Indian American.

The dispute “grew out of El-Sayed’s sarcastic questioning of whether Vance’s late, white Appalachian-born grandfather would have approved of his Indian American wife”.

In August, El-Sayed said: “I love my brown children, and I think my brown kids are just as American as everyone else. J.D. Vance has brown kids who he thinks are less American than everyone else.”

The remarks drew a sharp response from Michigan Republican co-chair Sunny Reddy, who came to the US from India in 1990. At a press event in Troy, Reddy said: “Usha Vance is not Abdul El-Sayed’s political punching bag. Her Indian heritage is not a punchline.”

In his victory speech, El-Sayed said he relished the thought that Vance, as President of the Senate, would swear him in.

South Asian groups made a visible bet on El-Sayed in the final week. On October 30, Indian American Impact’s Impact Fund and the SAATH Fund hosted a “Light Up the Vote” Diwali rally in Westland, Michigan.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Michigan House Democratic Leader Ranjeev Puri, who is Indian American, and Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval joined him on stage. Leaders were garlanded and lit a diya.

“Let us have the courage to lift up our voice and light our light at the ballot box … this Diwali, wishing you a happy, blessed holiday … I’m honoured to be welcomed into the community,” El-Sayed said.

El-Sayed attended two South Asian events that evening and urged the crowd not to be intimidated by the backlash against Indian and Muslim communities.

El-Sayed was born and raised in southeast Michigan, the son of an Egyptian immigrant father, Mohamed, and raised also by his stepmother, Jackie, according to his campaign biography.

He graduated from the University of Michigan, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he earned a doctorate, and received a medical degree from Columbia University. He taught epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

In 2015, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan named him health director to rebuild a department that had been privatised during the city’s bankruptcy. Harvard’s FXB Center describes him as having been the youngest health official in a major US city.

His programmes in Detroit included free glasses for schoolchildren, lead removal from elementary schools and universal access to the overdose drug Narcan.

He resigned in 2017 to run for governor. In the 2018 Democratic primary, he lost to Gretchen Whitmer, about 52 per cent to 30 per cent. The third candidate was Indian American businessman Shri Thanedar, who took about 18 per cent and is now a Detroit Congressman.

El-Sayed later became a CNN commentator and podcast host, and wrote books including “Healing Politics” and “Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide”.

From late 2022 to April 2025, he directed Wayne County’s health, human and veterans services department, which serves about 1.8 million people. He started a programme there to cancel up to $700 million of medical debt for about 300,000 Michiganders. He resigned in April 2025 to run for the Senate after Peters announced his retirement.

He narrowly won the August 4 Democratic primary against Congresswoman Haley Stevens. The Detroit Free Press put the result at about 49 per cent to 48 per cent. Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib backed El-Sayed, while Governor Whitmer and Senator Peters backed Stevens. The two candidates split most sharply over US aid to Israel.

An AIPAC-affiliated group spent more than $30 million trying to help Stevens, and Stevens later endorsed Rogers.

President Donald Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist”. At an October 25 rally in Port Huron, Trump said: “I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator.” El-Sayed denied the Muslim Brotherhood accusation and replied: “That’ll be Sen. Mohamed to you, bro.”

Federal Election Commission data show his committees raised about $54 million through mid-October, mostly from individuals, against about $23 million for Rogers. Former President Barack Obama endorsed him and campaigned for him.

Medicare for All is his signature issue. He has described the war in Gaza as a genocide. His positions page and a supporter-run site say he backs “an immediate arms embargo on Israel” and an end to blank-check military funding to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

He has said he wants a seat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee and has shown interest in the Foreign Relations committee.