A medical bill arrives at a Michigan home. The mortgage payment is due next week. Someone has already worked out how much the family can spend on groceries before payday.
On television, politicians are arguing about Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate who has just won the election. They are questioning his Muslim faith and his views on Israel.
I keep returning to one question.
Will loving Israel pay that family’s mortgage?
I know foreign policy matters. Senators decide how America spends money overseas, including military assistance to other countries. Their decisions affect national security and American taxpayers.
But why should a candidate’s religion become a bigger political controversy than his plans for the people he wants to represent?
The Michigan election offers an opportunity to examine how American political debate works, and what gets lost when personal attacks compete with practical questions about government.
A Muslim Candidate and an Ugly Campaign
On November 3, 2026, Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate election. The former public health official became the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate.
He has not yet taken office.
His victory followed a campaign in which his religion became a recurring target.
President Donald Trump called him a jihadist and accused him of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. Senator Ted Cruz also raised allegations about extremist connections.
El-Sayed rejected those allegations. PolitiFact investigated Trump’s claims and found them false. El-Sayed had not advocated religious violence or belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The campaign also involved serious disagreements about Israel. El-Sayed opposed American military assistance to Israel and criticized its military operations in Gaza.
Some Jewish voters and Democratic politicians challenged his position. Critics also questioned his association with political commentator Hasan Piker, whose remarks about Israel and Jewish people have caused controversy.
These subjects deserve proper examination. A politician’s foreign policy can affect American lives and international security. His choice of political allies also tells voters something about his judgment.
But being Muslim is not evidence of sympathy for terrorism.
I would make the same argument if a Christian candidate faced suspicion simply because of his church, or a Jewish candidate was asked to prove that America mattered more to him than Israel.
A politician should answer for his statements and actions. Religious identity alone tells us very little about how he will govern.
I have examined the danger of judging entire communities by the actions or accusations directed at individuals in my earlier article on antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Michigan Voters Had Other Things on Their Minds
The figures interested me more than the campaign insults.
In October, a WDIV/Detroit News poll asked 600 likely Michigan voters about the issues influencing their November vote.
Inflation and the cost of living led the responses at 17.5%. Jobs and the economy followed at 15.2%. Foreign policy and wars received 3.2%.
The same poll asked respondents which household expense worried them most.
Health insurance or medical costs came first at 32%. Almost one in five selected gasoline. Groceries concerned 14.2%, while 9.4% selected mortgage payments or rent.
The survey ran from October 19 to 22 and had a margin of error of four percentage points.
Another study, published after the election by the Searchlight Institute, asked voters to select their three most important Senate election issues.
The cost of living appeared in 72% of responses. Healthcare appeared in 40%. Only 11% included Israel and Gaza.
These were different surveys with different questions. Their percentages cannot be treated as directly comparable.
Still, both tell us something important about the concerns voters brought to this election. Many were thinking about what it costs to live in America.
I find the medical-cost figure especially revealing. People can postpone buying a new car. They cannot always postpone treatment when a doctor tells them something is wrong.
An insurance premium arrives whether the family can comfortably afford it or not.
In another article I examined why millions of Americans feel unable to leave their jobs because of health insurance. The links between work, medical cover and household finances run deep.
Why should questions about those expenses receive any less attention than a candidate’s views on a foreign government?
What Would El-Sayed Do About Healthcare?
El-Sayed made healthcare a central part of his campaign.
His official platform promises Medicare for All and reforms aimed at reducing the influence of large healthcare businesses. He also wants to address medical debt.
I would like journalists to examine those proposals in detail.
How would he pay for Medicare for All? Would households face new taxes, and how would those compare with what they currently spend on insurance?
What would happen to employer-sponsored coverage?
And perhaps the hardest question: how would he persuade Congress to pass such a large reform?
El-Sayed will enter Washington as one senator among one hundred. Winning an election does not give him the power to rewrite the healthcare system.
Voters deserve to know which parts of his program he can realistically advance and which depend on political agreements he has not secured.
Mike Rogers offered a different approach during the campaign, emphasizing tax reductions and healthcare price transparency.
Those ideas also deserve examination. Would price transparency substantially reduce what patients pay? Which households would benefit from proposed tax changes?
I am not interested in giving either politician a free pass.
A candidate who promises cheaper healthcare must explain how the plan works. The question should not disappear because an argument about religion attracts more viewers.
And What About the Mortgage?
El-Sayed’s housing proposals deserve similar scrutiny.
His campaign calls for a major increase in housing construction and simpler local rules that restrict development. He wants to prevent large corporations from speculating in residential property.
He also supports stronger protections for tenants and restrictions on software that allows landlords to coordinate rental prices.
There are real questions about how these ideas would work.
Federal lawmakers can provide incentives for building homes, but local governments control many zoning decisions.
Would El-Sayed’s approach increase construction quickly enough to reduce rents? How much would it cost, and would the benefits reach families with modest incomes?
What about existing homeowners whose mortgage payments leave little room for other expenses?
In my earlier examination of why a $100,000 salary no longer guarantees a comfortable American life, housing expenses played a major part in the household budget.
A serious interview could spend twenty minutes on housing alone. The answers would tell Michigan voters much more about El-Sayed’s economic program than another argument over whether a Muslim politician is sufficiently loyal to America.
Israel Matters. But It Cannot Replace Every Other Question.
Israel’s place in American politics did not begin with El-Sayed.
Washington has supported Israel for decades through military cooperation and diplomatic backing. American politicians disagree over the value of that relationship and the conditions attached to it.
Supporters argue that Israel is an important security partner in a volatile region. Critics question the scale of American assistance and the conduct of Israeli military operations.
These disagreements involve legitimate public policy.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the ten-year military assistance arrangement covering fiscal years 2019 through 2028 provides for $3.8 billion annually, subject to congressional appropriations. That includes military financing and joint missile-defense programs.
Additional assistance has been provided outside the regular arrangement.
El-Sayed opposes American military assistance to Israel. In a November NPR interview, he argued that public money should address needs at home rather than subsidize foreign militaries.
That position deserves scrutiny, just as the arguments for continuing aid do.
Would reducing assistance improve American security or weaken it? What would it mean for the Middle East? And how much money could actually be redirected toward domestic programs?
I do not accept the assumption that Americans must choose between discussing foreign policy and demanding affordable healthcare. They can ask about both.
But I object when a candidate’s support for Israel becomes a political loyalty test, particularly when his religion is used to suggest that he cannot be trusted.
Jewish Americans do not all hold the same views about Israel. Neither do Muslim Americans.
Criticizing an Israeli government policy does not automatically make someone antisemitic. Hostility toward Jewish people, however, cannot be excused as ordinary political criticism.
The same care is necessary when examining prejudice against Muslims.
Would Cutting Foreign Aid Solve America’s Financial Problems?
There is another part of this debate that needs more arithmetic.
It is tempting to look at billions of dollars in military assistance and imagine what that money could do for struggling families. I understand the reaction.
A person who cannot afford medical treatment may reasonably ask why the government can finance weapons abroad while healthcare remains so expensive at home.
But cutting military aid would not automatically reduce anyone’s hospital bill.
Congress would have to redirect the savings. Existing commitments could limit how quickly spending changes, and some military assistance finances purchases from American manufacturers.
More importantly, the cost of a national healthcare program would be far greater than the ordinary annual military assistance package for Israel.
El-Sayed therefore needs to explain how his spending priorities fit together.
What would he cut? What taxes would he change? How would he cover the full cost of the programs he supports?
Politicians who defend overseas spending while promising domestic savings face equally demanding questions. A slogan about putting America first does not pay a hospital bill either.
Why Do Political Controversies Dominate the Headlines?
I have followed American politics for years, and the pattern is familiar.
One politician makes an inflammatory statement. Another demands an apology. Television programs discuss the exchange, and social media fills with clips.
The argument continues long after the original statement has been explained or corrected.
A proposal to reform healthcare is harder to cover. It requires a reporter to examine funding and legislative powers. Someone must ask how the policy would affect employers and patients. The answers may be complicated.
Religion, by contrast, can become an argument almost immediately.
That does not mean American journalists all behaved in the same way during El-Sayed’s campaign.
Some investigated the allegations against him. Michigan news organizations reported extensively on affordability, while national outlets covered his economic proposals alongside the religious attacks.
The problem is worth examining without pretending that the entire press followed one script.
When politicians turn a campaign into a dispute about personal identity, journalists face a choice about how much attention to give it.
A false allegation still needs investigation. Ignoring it could allow misinformation to spread. But once reporters establish the facts, they should not allow the accusation to become a substitute for examining public policy.
I would like to see a candidate questioned as closely about the financing of his healthcare plan as he is about his foreign-policy statements.
Both subjects matter. Only one directly explains what may happen to the family’s next medical bill.
The Election Is Over. The Bills Are Still There.
Abdul El-Sayed won despite attacks on his religion. That does not tell us why every voter supported or opposed him. The economy, party loyalty and other concerns all played roles in Michigan’s election.
His victory also does not prove that his healthcare or housing proposals will work.
He now faces a different responsibility: turning campaign promises into legislation.
I would like journalists to follow that work closely. Ask which bills he introduces, whether he secures support and what his proposals would cost.
If he fails to deliver, question him. If Congress blocks his proposals, explain why. If his plans contain weaknesses, expose them.
His supporters deserve that scrutiny as much as his opponents.
I raised a related concern in my article on whether American families can afford years of political gridlock.
I return to the family sitting at the kitchen table.
The medical bill is still there. The mortgage payment has not become smaller because a politician expressed support for Israel or questioned another politician’s faith.
The family needs to know whether its newly elected senator can do anything useful about those expenses.
I would begin the next interview with the medical bill.
Then I would ask him to explain exactly what he intends to do about it.