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Republicans nearly immediately resorted to Islamophobic attacks after voters chose Abdul El-Sayed as Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate on Wednesday, sparking defiance from El-Sayed as he taunted the GOP’s inability to speak to real issues.

In a statement on El-Sayed’s win on Wednesday morning, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) referred to El-Sayed using his full name — a move that hearkens to Republicans’ anti-Muslim references to Barack Obama using his middle name, Hussein.

The statement refers to El-Sayed as Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed and attempts to smear him as a “radical.” The press release links to the NRSC’s new ad against the Democratic candidate in which a voiceover also uses his full name.

The ad further goes on to repeat a baseless conspiracy theory that El-Sayed is supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, and flashes excerpts of an op-ed he wrote in 2011 where he does not express any such opinion.

El-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers, also referenced such debunked claims in a bigoted statement on the primary results. Rogers’s statement was even more overt in its Islamophobia, making claims about El-Sayed that are demonstrably untrue and even throwing in a seemingly violent threat.

Abdul El-Sayed Triumphs Over Haley Stevens in $60M Loss for AIPAC, Corporations

“I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice,” said Rogers, potentially referring to his time as chair of the House Intelligence Committee in the 2010s. “Never in a........

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