Why Nearly 100 Muslims Won National, Local Races In The US Midterm Elections

At least 97 Muslim Americans have won their races in this week's midterm elections, encompassing the federal, state, and local levels, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair).

It's hard to imagine that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's landslide win last year didn't have an impact on his fellow Muslims who hadn't entertained the possibilities.

More than a dozen other candidates are still awaiting the full ballot count - depending on individual county rules and the way mail-in votes are handled - but they are ahead of their opponents as of Friday morning.

They come from a pool of 168 Muslim-American candidates who made it past the primary stage of their races, which is when they compete within their own party to earn the nomination.

Seven Muslim Americans are headed to Washington, DC

Six are going to the House of Representatives, including incumbents Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Andre Carson, and Lateefah Simon; and they will be joined by freshmen Adam Hamawy and Darializa Avila Chevalier.

If Aisha Wahab secures her win, which had not been decided by Friday morning local time, she would also join the incumbent House members.

One Muslim American is going to the Senate: Abdul El-Sayed. He will be the first to ever serve a six-year term in the upper chamber.

Cair has tracked 39 other statewide offices where Muslim Americans won, ranging from attorney general to the state legislature and the state senate.

At the county and municipal level, there are 16 winners, and education and school boards saw 27 Muslim-Americans elected.

Eight were elected to be judges.

The wins make for an all-time record, and come as anti-Muslim sentiment and rhetoric, particularly among Republicans, is at its highest in a generation, according to groups like Muslim Public Affairs Council (Mpac), the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSO), and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU).