LANSING, MI - 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.
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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.
"You come to realize pretty quickly that people are people are people," he said.
But for El-Sayed, as a political candidate, his religion keeps creeping into the spotlight.
Garnering national attention
Sometimes the attention El-Sayed gets is positive. He's become something of a national media sensation, earning profiles in national publications like POLITICO, Huffington Post and TIME. The Guardian called him "The New Obama" in their profile, something Vox reported people shouldn't actually be calling him.
El-Sayed first saw himself in a political candidate when former President Barack Obama was on the ballot.
"His dad immigrated from Africa, my dad immigrated from Africa. He was raised in a mixed family, I was raised in a mixed family. He's got a funny name, I've got a funny name. They call him Muslim, I'm actually Muslim. And I remember what that meant to me," El-Sayed said.
Now he's watching other people - not just Muslim Americans, he's quick to point out -- see themselves in him.
"And I think one of the most fulfilling things about running for office is watching other people see themselves in you. And there's a weight in that you don't want to let them down, you know what I mean? And so, it's inspiring to work hard," he said.
Nabeel Zazaian, 24, is a student at Central Michigan University and also a Muslim American. He and his girlfriend came to see El-Sayed speak and like the authenticity he's bringing to the governor's race.
"It's like a whirlwind, almost, to see someone who's so relatable for me and my girlfriend," Zazaian said. "It's just incredible."
But as relatable as he is to some of his supporters, sometimes the attention El-Sayed's religion draws is negative.
A Republican governor candidate, Patrick Colbeck, accused him of being tied to the Muslim Brotherhood - a group Colbeck claims is trying to destroy Western civilization, though others say that is a conspiracy theory. Colbeck repeated those assertions at a gubernatorial forum, saying he didn't oppose Muslims, just this particular Muslim group. El-Sayed called it something else: Islamophobia.
"What I have not heard is the Republicans on this panel decisively and swiftly call out this kind of Islamophobia, this kind of racism, in the context that they are running to represent the state that has the highest per-capita number of Muslim-Americans in the country. Now you might not hate Muslims, but I'll tell you Muslims definitely hate you," El-Sayed said during the forum.
Whatever attention it's gotten him, his religion is a part of his life. In the race to be governor, his mind is on fixing what he sees as big, systemic problems.
Taking on the system
El-Sayed grew up in Bloomfield Township but would come into the city of Detroit to go to Eastern Market or spend time with people. What struck him was the difference between the opportunities for people in the suburbs and people in the city. Those disparities "to me really framed what I wanted to do with my career," he said.
He went to the University of Michigan, where he was on the Lacrosse team, as an undergraduate. He was a Rhodes scholar, and got a doctorate at Oxford and a medical degree from Columbia University. In New York, he ended up serving as a professor. He loved that life, he said, but left it because he didn't feel like he was making a difference.
He moved back to Michigan and took a position in the administration of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, leading Detroit's health department.
But he decided the real way to affect change was to run for office. And not a traditional stepping stone office, like school board or local official. For governor of a state of 9.9 million people.
"I asked myself two questions: Could you be a better governor than anybody else in the race and can you win?" he said of his decision to get in.
The answers, he decided, were yes and yes.
Since then, he's activated and tapped into Michigan progressives. His base parallels that of Bernie Sanders, who won Michigan's 2016 presidential primary over establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. And the comparison isn't surface-level - a key Sanders staffer serves as his deputy campaign manager, and he's earned the endorsement of Our Revolution, the Sanders-inspired group supporting progressive candidates nationally.
And some of the ideas Sanders proposed El-Sayed is looking to implement on a state level. Perhaps most notable among these is an ambitious proposal to institute MichCare, state-level single-payer health care that would cover every Michiganders starting at birth. Under the plan the state of Michigan would pay for health care instead of private insurers, funding it through payroll and business taxes.
And it's not the only big issue he's hoping to tackle. El-Sayed is also committed to raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, implementing universal pre-Kindergarten and making tuition free for families earning under $150,000.
He wants to help people and has concrete plans and answers, said his aunt, Wanita "Skeeter" Kampmueller of Reed City. From when he was young, playing with his cousins, to his time as a lacrosse player to his run for governor she's seen the consistency of his character. He is an honest, ethical person, she said.
"He's always been very direct, very humble and his is enthusiastic," she said.
El-Sayed got into the race for governor because he wanted things to change, and he's not shy in talking about what's wrong. Much of what's wrong, in his view, is corporations benefitting over regular people.
"I'm not anti-corporate so much as I'm pro-people. And right now people get a bum deal because we've allowed corporations to lobby to the tunes of millions of dollars and buy and sell politicians to return value for those corporations. That's not how it was supposed to work," El-Sayed said.
He isn't accepting corporate money and has been highly critical of candidates, including Democratic frontrunner Gretchen Whitmer, who do. (Shri Thanedar, the other Democratic candidate in the race, is a self-funder who does not accept corporate money.)
El-Sayed is running a no-holds-barred campaign to get people back at the center of state government.
His priorities include raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ending for-profit charter schools, extending civil rights protections to LGBTQ Michiganders, fighting for clean water, reversing Right to Work and ending gerrymandering.
He was the youngest health chief of a major city in Detroit, and now he's the youngest candidate for governor.
"If folks are looking for somebody who's done a little bit in a lot of time, I'm not the guy. If folks are looking for someone who's done a lot in a little bit of time, I might be the guy. And so to me it's about have your previous experiences demonstrated or built your capacity to do the work. And I think more than any other candidate, mine have, however young I am," he said.
During campaign season, it's his priorities and ideals that keep him busy touring the state, knocking on doors and talking to Michiganders. It's other people who are drawn to his religion.
"I don't pay as much attention to being the first Muslim anything," El-Sayed said.
El-Sayed faces Shri Thanedar and Gretchen Whitmer in the Aug. 7 primary. On the Republican side are Brian Calley, Patrick Colbeck, Jim Hines and Bill Schuette. The winners of each contest will run against each other in the Nov. 6 general election.
Follow MLive.com all week for profiles of Michigan's governor candidates.