(MLive) Outside of an agriculture business in rural Michigan, a candidate for governor unveiled his rural agenda with the sun shining, surrounded by supporters as an eagle dipped and soared overhead.
The campaign moment was archetypal, but the candidate at its center wasn’t. Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, if elected, would be the first Muslim governor in the United States. It was the first day of Ramadan, and he gave the speech under the hot sun while fasting.
In everything from his family to his policy platforms he makes the kind of cross-culture, cross-income, cross-geographic connections he’s striving to define a people-centered campaign around.
Growing up visiting both his rural Michigan family and his family in Egypt, where his dad is from, El-Sayed is highly attuned to not only what makes groups of people different, but what makes them similar.
