Record 57 Muslims elected in recent US elections

Harun Nasrullah Fifty-seven of the record 110 Muslim candidates who stood for seats in the US general election won their elections on November 3, according to a tally by Jetpac, CAIR, MPower Change. A total of some 170 Muslim candidates ran in all of 2020, almost 30 more than the previous high of 134 candidates who ran in 2018.
Record Muslim turnout More than one million American Muslims participated in the US election, with nearly 70 % voting for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, CAIR exit poll has shown. The poll showed that 84 per cent of 844 registered Muslim voter households said that they have voted. The poll said 69 % of their registered Muslim voters voted for Biden and 17 % for President Donald Trump. It noted that Trump received 4 % more support of the Muslim vote, compared to the 2016 election, in which then he received 13 %.
Return of the incumbents Eight of the candidates were on the ballot for Congress in seven states, including Democrat incumbents Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and André Carson who all won re-election. Mike Siegel lost a close race to represent the 10th Congressional District in Texas.Omar won in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District whereas Tlaib won in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. Ilhan and Rashida are the first Muslim women elected to the Congress in 2018.
Omar, 38, the first Somali American member of Congress, won a second defeating her Republican challenger,by 64.6 % of the vote to 25.9 %. Omar has built a national profile that started when the one-time refugee from Somalia was elected to the Minnesota Legislature in 2016.
Omar’s aggressive advocacy on liberal issues, anti-Israel comments and eagerness to take on President Donald Trump made her prominent. She has frequently become a target of defamatory comments from the President and other Republicans. Trump ramped up his repeated xenophobic attack on Omar ahead of the elections and said his party would win Minnesota because of Omar.