Abdul El-Sayed (D) took a victory lap of sorts around Vice President JD Vance on election night after declaring himself the winner in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race.
“JD, habibi,” began the progressive, projected to defeat his GOP opponent, Mike Rogers, with a smirk during a speech to supporters in Detroit.
“There is this delicious irony in the fact that you’re constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January,” he continued, delighting over the line and sparking a roar from the crowd.
Vance hurled a string of personal attacks at El-Sayed over the course of the campaign, fueling a feud that revved up after he distorted the Democrat’s old comments on Islamic law to tell a rally crowd that he’d love to go back in time to tell his “papaw” about the progressive.
El-Sayed, set to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, responded by wondering aloud if the veep would take Usha Vance, the second lady and his wife of Indian ancestry, “back in time with him to meet his papaw.”
Vance responded by demanding El-Sayed keep his wife’s name “the hell out” of his mouth, to which the Democrat hit back by telling him and Trump to “face down their own hypocrisy.”
The Yale alum-turned-veep also mispronounced El-Sayed’s name in speeches and once weirdly joked about arresting him over his “patchy” facial hair.
Moments after his swearing-in reminder, El-Sayed used his alma mater, the University of Michigan, to tease Vance, a graduate of rival Ohio State University, about his projected victory in the race.
“So you know what that means?” he wrote on X. “Wolverine 1, Buckeye 0.”