Record Number Of Muslim Americans Elected In 2022 Midterms

By Li Cohen, CBS Minnesota

November 11, 2022

This year's midterm elections propelled a large number of history-making politicians into office, from Congress' first Gen Z member to Maryland's first Black governor. It also proved to be historic for Muslim Americans, with a record-breaking number of community members being elected to their respective seats.

Republican Mehmet Oz would have been the nation's first Muslim senator had he won his seat in Pennsylvania. But even with his loss, 82 Muslim candidates swept up local, state, federal and judicial seats in 25 states, a report from the Jetpac Resource Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found.

Many of those wins were in red states, including Texas, Virginia and Georgia, and included 20 incumbents and 17 new candidates. Those seats range from local boards of education and city councils to the U.S. House of Representatives, where congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D-MN, and Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, maintained their positions.

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