The Michigan Senate race between the Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, and his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, is this year’s most important election.

It’s significant, on a number of levels, not the least of which is that El-Sayed is an Arab American Muslim of Egyptian descent. Prior to this, we’ve had four Arab Americans elected to the US Senate—former Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), James Abourezk (D-SD), James Abdnor (R-SD), and John Sununu (R-NH)—none of them Muslim. If elected, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim in the Senate. This is a breakthrough that hasn’t been lost on Republicans and President Trump, who have made a determined effort to exploit it at every turn. They’ve done TV ads alleging that El-Sayed’s mother was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s. The problem with this charge is that El-Sayed’s parents separated when he was three; she moved back to Egypt and he grew up with his father in Michigan. But when using slanderous attacks to tarnish a candidate is the goal, facts don’t matter. And so, the GOP has persisted in spreading the Muslim Brotherhood lie on social media and by sending paid hecklers to El-Sayed’s campaign events pestering him with questions and comments like: “Will you denounce the Muslim Brotherhood?” A recent exchange of this sort backfired on the Republican instigators.

At a town hall when a young man asked whether El-Sayed would denounce the group, El-Sayed shot back, “Yes, absolutely,” and then pivoted by asking the questioner, “Why are you asking me this?” wanting to know whether it was because of his name and how he prayed. He then made clear that the document to which he would take an oath was the US Constitution and smartly compared the attacks against his religion with those leveled against President Kennedy—that Kennedy would be more loyal to the Catholic Pope than to the Constitution. El-Sayed concluded noting that he wasn’t running to be a Muslim senator, but a senator who happened to be a Muslim.

That exchange went viral on social media, drawing more than 50 million viewers the first night. The next day it was revealed that the heckler was a former staffer for a very conservative anti-Muslim Senator. He had been hired by a group that had received a very substantial contract to hire hecklers to disrupt El-Sayed events. This brings into focus another reason why this election is so important: the role of dark money in American politics. Dark money refers to money raised by “super PACs” and independent expenditure funds that are not required to report donors before elections. This has allowed billionaires and special interest groups to amass large sums and spend them to defame candidates who oppose their agendas. Increasingly, these dark money sources are raising and spending more........

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