{"id":2913,"date":"2025-09-28T03:49:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T03:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/28\/senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed-meets-with-umich-students\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T03:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T03:49:08","slug":"senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed-meets-with-umich-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/28\/senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed-meets-with-umich-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed meets with UMich students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>University of Michigan<a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/uncategorized\/students-year-abdul-el-sayed\/\"> alum<\/a> Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/michigan-senate-race-heats-3-major-democrats-enter\/story?id=121050591\"> primary<\/a> for Michigan\u2019s upcoming Senate election, came to the Michigan Union Thursday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DO6GbJlgGuM\/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MW5iYWp5bTBmN2I1OQ==\">afternoon<\/a> to hold a town hall with students.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The event was co-hosted by the University\u2019s chapter of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/umichforabdul\/\"> Students for Abdul<\/a> and the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.collegedemsatum.com\/\"> College Democrats at the University of Michigan<\/a>. El-Sayed, who previously<a href=\"https:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/news\/local\/michigan\/2025\/04\/01\/abdul-el-sayed-wayne-county-health-department-senate-bid\/82758673007\/\"> served<\/a> as the director of Wayne County\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.waynecountymi.gov\/Government\/Departments\/Health-Human-Veterans-Services\"> Department of Health, Human and Veteran Services<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/52617340-medicare-for-all\"> co-wrote<\/a> the book \u201cMedicare for All: A Citizen\u2019s Guide,\u201d opened the town hall by rallying the crowd against the influence of money in politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlright, who here believes in people over profit?\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cLet me hear you: Government of the people, by the people and for the people, rather than of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Continuing his speech, El-Sayed described his<a href=\"https:\/\/abdulforsenate.com\/about\/\"> childhood<\/a> growing up in a family of Egyptian immigrants, the inequalities he witnessed in his life and their impact on his subsequent career in public health. El-Sayed said his Senate run was inspired by his love for the United States.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cPeople like to show up \u2026 and be like, \u2018You must hate America,\u2019\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cLike, no, I love America. I love America because I know exactly what my life might have been like but for America. And at the same time, I love America enough to ask America to be its best.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed believes the United States must address several problems, such as the\u00a0 expansion of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/features\/100-days\">raids<\/a> by<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/\"> U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a>, that he feels have had a negative effect on the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI happen to have family that live in a place where the government routinely kidnaps people,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cThey don\u2019t tell you why you\u2019re being kidnapped, they don\u2019t tell you when you\u2019re going to get out, they don\u2019t tell you for what reason \u2014 you\u2019re just disappeared. I don\u2019t want this country to be that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed said, however, that Trump was not the root of the nation\u2019s troubles. Instead, he blamed the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/can-billionaires-buy-democracy\/\"> influence<\/a> of billionaires in U.S. politics and society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump is not, himself, the disease of our politics,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cDonald Trump is just the worst symptom of the disease of our politics. The disease is a system that allows huge corporations, billionaires, would-be oligarchs to buy access to politicians in ways that leaves them rigging the system against us.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>El-Sayed previously ran in the<a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Michigan_gubernatorial_and_lieutenant_gubernatorial_election,_2018_(August_7_Democratic_primary)\"> 2018 Democratic primary<\/a> for the Michigan gubernatorial race. Although he lost the race to current Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, he said his platform was more relevant than ever.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I ran back in 2018, we were crystal clear about what the problem was and about how we were going to solve it,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cEight years on, things have just gotten worse. People are finding life less affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amid decreasing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/americans-grapple-with-affordability-crisis-hard-for-me-just-to-survive\/\">affordability<\/a> of life in the U.S., El-Sayed said the country should provide less military assistance to foreign nations. Instead of providing<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/article\/us-aid-israel-four-charts\"> aid<\/a> to Israel or U.S.-<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/biden-administration-grants-egypt-13-billion-military-aid-despite-rights-2024-09-11\/\">funded<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/moderndiplomacy.eu\/2024\/10\/24\/egypts-decade-of-dictatorship-and-repression-a-struggle-for-democracy\/\">governments<\/a> like Egypt, El-Sayed said the U.S. should focus on local<a href=\"https:\/\/www.proliteracy.org\/news\/causes-of-low-adult-literacy-in-the-us\/\"> <\/a>issues such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proliteracy.org\/news\/causes-of-low-adult-literacy-in-the-us\/\">literacy rates.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn an era where our kids\u2019 schools are tumbling, our literacy rates are tumbling, maybe, just maybe, we should keep our money here at home rather than sending it abroad to foreign militaries to drop bombs on other people and their children and to wage genocide with our money,\u201d El-Sayed said.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed clarified his position on military aid later during the town hall in response to a question asking if he would support assistance to Ukraine in the face of its<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c0l0k4389g2o\"> invasion<\/a> by Russia. He said he was not uniformly opposed to providing aid.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m talking about unconditional, blank check military aid,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I oppose. When it comes to Ukraine, it\u2019s a very different ball game. In Ukraine, we\u2019re talking about enforcing the rules of the rules-based international order in accordance with our allies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked what differentiated him from other prospective Democratic Senate <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/United_States_Senate_election_in_Michigan,_2026\">candidates<\/a>, El-Sayed said voters should consider his dislike of corporate donations and support of universal health care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m the only person in this race who hasn\u2019t touched a dime of corporate money,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cI\u2019ve never defended corporate money, I never will, and if you have, I\u2019m so sorry. It just tells me that you don\u2019t understand what the problem is. Relatedly, I\u2019m also the only one running on \u2018Medicare for All.\u2019 Not only am I running on it, I wrote the damn book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To close his speech, El-Sayed said change may be what the country needs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can get money out of politics, we can put money back in people\u2019s pockets and we can pass Medicare for All,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cThat is the choice we have in front of us, nothing less will do. \u2026 I know I look different, I sound different, my name is definitely different \u2014 but maybe we need a little bit more difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>In an interview with The Michigan Daily, LSA senior Allison Doroshewitz, co-chair of the College Democrats at the University of Michigan, said while her organization cannot endorse any Democratic candidate, they were happy to host El-Sayed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were very excited that Abdul reached out to us and wanted to come on campus,\u201d Doroshewitz said. \u201cHe showed a lot of initiative in reaching out to students. We\u2019re hopefully excited to see Senator McMorrow and Representative Stevens as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Public Policy junior Aidan Rozema, co-chair of the College Democrats at the University of Michigan, said many members of his organization were excited about El-Sayed\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that our membership is definitely hungry for change,\u201d Rozema said. \u201cI think that\u2019s true of the country broadly, and I\u2019m excited to see candidates who are coming out and promising to take on corporate influence in our politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Staff Reporter Glenn Hedin can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/government\/who-here-believes-in-people-over-profit-senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed-meets-with-umich-students\/mailto:heglenn@umich.edu\"><em>heglenn@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-5    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>University of Michigan alum Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for Michigan\u2019s upcoming Senate election, came to the Michigan Union Thursday afternoon to hold a town hall with students.\u00a0 The event was co-hosted by the University\u2019s chapter of Students for Abdul and the College Democrats at the University of Michigan. El-Sayed, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3055,3054,3056,1039,656,505,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-2913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-abdul","9":"tag-candidate","10":"tag-elsayed","11":"tag-meets","12":"tag-senate","13":"tag-students","14":"tag-umich"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2915,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions\/2915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}