Democrat Abdul El-Sayed will become the first Muslim American elected to the United States Senate, after the Associated Press called Michigan's open Senate race in his favor at 2:27 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, with Republican Mike Rogers yet to concede.

With roughly 85% of votes counted, El-Sayed led Rogers by about 52% to 46%, according to results reported by NPR member station coverage and Michigan public radio station WKAR. Rogers' campaign said Wednesday morning that it still expected more votes to be counted and had not conceded the race.

The win keeps Michigan's Senate seat in Democratic hands following the retirement of two-term Sen. Gary Peters, and comes as Democrats flipped control of the chamber nationally on the same night.

A Campaign Fought Over Identity

El-Sayed, a 41-year-old former Wayne County health director, narrowly won the Democratic primary over Rep. Haley Stevens by roughly one percentage point in August before facing Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent, in a race both parties treated as a potential tipping point for Senate control.

The general election turned unusually personal. President Trump invoked the September 11 attacks while campaigning against El-Sayed, and Rogers allies raised unsubstantiated claims tying El-Sayed's family to the Muslim Brotherhood — allegations El-Sayed repeatedly denied, at one point comparing the scrutiny of his background to questions once raised about John F. Kennedy's Catholicism.

MICHIGAN, WE DID IT

A Marist poll released days before the election had shown the race a statistical dead heat, within the margin of error, consistent with how both parties were treating Michigan as one of the cycle's premier battlegrounds, according to pre-election reporting from the Washington Examiner.

Had he won, Rogers would have been the first Republican to represent Michigan in the Senate since Spencer Abraham lost his reelection bid in 2000 — a marker of just how competitive the state's Senate politics have remained even as Michigan has otherwise trended Democratic in recent federal elections.

What's Next

Rogers has not formally conceded, and his campaign says it is still tracking outstanding ballots, though the size of El-Sayed's lead with the vast majority of votes counted makes a reversal unlikely. Once certified, El-Sayed is set to be sworn in alongside the rest of the incoming Senate class in January, joining a chamber that flipped to Democratic control for the first time in several years on the same election night.