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Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has registered a leadership political action committee named “Habibi PAC,” days after winning a seat that makes him the first Muslim member of the US Senate, according to a Federal Election Commission filing.
The filing, dated Thursday, lists Habibi PAC as a leadership PAC sponsored by El-Sayed. Such committees are legally separate from a politician’s own campaign. Political action committees in general raise and spend money to support or oppose candidates for office.
Habibi is an Arabic term of endearment meaning “my dear” or “my beloved.” El-Sayed, a Democrat and the son of Egyptian immigrants, used it often while campaigning.
He invoked it in his victory speech in Detroit, when he addressed Vice President JD Vance directly. There was “this delicious irony,” he said, in the fact that Vance is constitutionally obligated to swear him in in January.
The vice president presides over the Senate, and it is customary for him to administer the oath of office to new senators.
Leadership PACs are a common tool in Washington.
In the 2024 election cycle, leadership PACs gave $79.3 million to federal candidates. Most of the money went to Republicans, though a Democratic leadership PAC was the largest single donor.
El-Sayed is one of several newly elected Democrats to register leadership PACs since Tuesday’s vote, FEC filings show. Others include Arizona Congressman-elect Amish Shah’s “PACStreet Boy,” Iowa Senator-elect Josh Turek’s “WheelPAC” and North Carolina Senator-elect Roy Cooper’s “One NC PAC.”
El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers after a campaign in which President Donald Trump, Vance and Senator Ted Cruz questioned his loyalty.
They also accused him of extremism and, trying to to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, without providing evidence.
Days before the vote, El-Sayed told Al Jazeera at a rally in Wyandotte, Michigan, that taxpayers’ money should go toward saving lives at home rather than to foreign governments he described as committing genocide or apartheid.
He added that defeating Trump was not enough and that the system that produced him had to be replaced.
Getting money out of politics was among his central pledges. In his victory speech, he said the result showed that in a battle between money and the many, “the many can win.”
His win came in the most expensive midterm election on record. An OpenSecrets analysis of FEC data projects total spending will reach $11.9 billion, up from $8.9 billion in 2022.
Outside spending, driven by super PACs, is projected to hit $3.9 billion, an 85 percent increase on 2022. Dark money from undisclosed donors has already reached at least $1.47 billion, surpassing the 2024 record of $1.35 billion, a figure that included the presidential race.
OpenSecrets also found that conservative groups outspent liberal ones on outside spending by about $360 million. Democratic candidates were expected to outspend Republican candidates by roughly $800 million.
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