This is apropos a letter to the Editor titled ‘From Mamdani to El-Sayed: reshaping America’s politics’ carried by the newspaper yesterday. Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to filmmaker Mira Nair, who was born in India, and Mahmood Mamdani, a prominent Ugandan academic of Indian ancestry.
He later became an American citizen. El-Sayed was born in Michigan and is the son of Egyptian immigrants. Therefore, Mamdani is himself an immigrant, while El-Sayed is a native-born American from an immigrant family. Both, however, embody the experience of Muslim families establishing themselves within American society.
Their professional beginnings were also different. Mamdani worked as a housing counsellor, helping homeowners facing foreclosure, and participated in electoral campaigns before winning a seat in the New York State Assembly in 2020. He defeated an established incumbent in the Democratic primary and was subsequently re-elected. His political identity developed through tenant advocacy, public transportation campaigns and democratic-socialist organizing.
El-Sayed followed a more academic and administrative path. He studied medicine and public health, became an epidemiologist and served as Detroit’s health director before later leading health and human-services work in Wayne County. His first major electoral campaign was an unsuccessful run for governor of Michigan in 2018.
Instead of disappearing after that defeat, he remained active through public-policy work, writing, broadcasting and grassroots organization. By the time he entered the 2026 Senate race, he had converted a previous defeat into state-wide recognition and a more experienced political operation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
The writer is a former Press Secretary to the President, An ex-Press Minister at Embassy of Pakistan to France, a former MD, SRBC Macomb, Detroit, Michigan
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