El-Sayed, who would be the country’s first Muslim senator if he wins in November, has faced a relentless barrage of identity-based attacks since launching his campaign, and especially since securing the Democratic nomination. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that anti-Muslim attacks targeting him skyrocketed twentyfold after the primary, and just seven days “produced more abuse than the preceding seven months.” Overall Islamophobic content on X hit its highest day of the summer on Aug. 5, the day after he won, according to the center’s analysis of more than 409,000 anti-Muslim posts on X from June 1 to Aug. 10.
“What you’ve seen is mainstream Republican and Democratic candidates who are invoking his racial identity, his religious identity and even his name as a way to say that he is not qualified,” Doukoure said of attacks on El-Sayed.
The onslaught against El-Sayed represents the latest mutation of Islamophobia in the United States, which has been driven by reaction to the political success of Muslims, said Saeed Khan, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit. This year, CAIR identified an unprecedented 255 Muslim officials across 26 states, serving at nearly every level of government. The organization also reported receiving a record number of complaints of discrimination and bigotry for the third year in a row.