{"id":33246,"date":"2026-08-08T21:28:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33246"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:28:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:28:19","slug":"trump-loses-house-endorsement-as-amir-hassan-falls-in-michigan-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33246","title":{"rendered":"Trump loses house endorsement as Amir Hassan falls in Michigan primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/AP26208745611383.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n        <iframe id=\"instaread_iframe\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Audio Article\" style=\"display:block\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n    <\/p>\n<p><\/instaread-player><\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Michigan\u2019s Democrats served up a string of victories for the left. Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s narrow triumph in the Senate primary may even have raised President Donald Trump hopes about his chances of keeping the chamber. But my favorite subplot of Michigan\u2019s primary night, and surely the result that most surprised Trump, came in the 8th District. Amir Hassan, a candidate Trump had endorsed and rallied with, <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/5986241-mcdonald-rivet-hassan-michigan-house\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lost his Republican primary to Thomas Smith<\/a>, an unknown who had withdrawn in mid-July after mounting basically no campaign and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2026-election\/candidate-dropped-beats-trumps-pick-battleground-gop-house-primary-rcna590905\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">raising basically no money<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI fell short last night. I make no excuse. It was a tough race,\u201d Hassan said in a video from his car Wednesday morning. Reflecting on his failed endorsement, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PatrickSvitek\/status\/2085113641594913176\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Trump lamented<\/a>: \u201cIt was a little bit of a person that I thought was a good person \u2014 didn\u2019t have much of a chance, but I said: \u2018I don\u2019t care. I\u2019m doing it anyway.\u201d <\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Fundraising cannot explain Hassan\u2019s defeat. He had ample financial backing, though he still raised less than the Democratic nominee. Nor is Trump reviled in the predominantly white <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Michigan%27s_8th_Congressional_District\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">8th District<\/a>, which backed him for president in 2024 even as it sent a Democrat to Congress. The apparent explanation is that the Republican electorate could not get past Hassan\u2019s Muslim-sounding name.<\/p>\n<p>Hassan, who has described himself as Christian since early in the campaign, is African American and has no Middle Eastern background. The surname proves nothing about its bearer\u2019s religion, as Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) might attest (no relation). Still, even Trump\u2019s stamp of approval failed to sway the race, handing the president his first House-primary endorsement defeat of his second term. <\/p>\n<p>Smith had actually endorsed another candidate. The fact that he won anyway suggests many of his voters had no idea who he was and went simply by the Caucasian vibe of his name.<\/p>\n<p>A foreign-sounding name, Middle Eastern or otherwise, does not invariably spell doom. It <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/may\/06\/vivek-ramaswamy-ohio-gop-primary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">did not doom Vivek Ramaswamy<\/a>, who trounced his Groyper-esque opponent Casey Putsch in Ohio\u2019s gubernatorial primary earlier this year. Ramaswamy, however, entered the race with national celebrity and a vast fortune, both of which improves an electorate\u2019s pronunciation. Tuesday made grim reading for anyone who imagined the Republican base wholesale having moved beyond this sort of crude identitarian reflex.<\/p>\n<p>To some on the right, the result was cause for celebration. \u201c\u2019Amir Hassan\u2019 claims he\u2019s not a Muslim, but it doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/trump-backed-black-conservative-lost-184911023.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">chimed Laura Loomer.<\/a> \u201cHis name sounds like he\u2019s fresh off the boat and MAGA voters reject the Islamic infiltration of our country and party.\u201d If Tuesday offered any indication of the Islamic \u201ctakeover\u201d of the Republican Party, as Loomer so often describes it, she and her fellow extremists haven\u2019t much to fear.<\/p>\n<p>It may make especially grim reading for El-Sayed, who now enters the general election against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R), whose name is as gloriously generic as \u201cThomas Smith.\u201d Republicans are already harping on El-Sayed\u2019s proper first name, Abdulrahman, and his bro-fisting with lefty streamer Hasan Piker, who once declared that \u201cAmerica deserved 9\/11,\u201d in an effort to reduce El-Sayed to some sort of Islamist caricature. After a bruising primary, El-Sayed must win over Republicans as well as Haley Stevens supporters, some of whom regard him as antisemitic, radical and interested chiefly in Arab and Muslim voters.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>El-Sayed\u2019s response is to stick to policy. \u201cYeah, my name is Abdul. I\u2019ll say the whole thing: Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. And I want you to have health care, because you know what? Chances are, you probably had a doctor you trust with a name like mine,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/daveweigel\/status\/2084988386196980209\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">he told Semafor\u2019s David Weigel<\/a> in June. <\/p>\n<p>It will nevertheless be far easier for Republicans to persuade Michigan voters that El-Sayed wants to impose socialism-inflected Sharia law than it was for Andrew Cuomo to make the charge stick in New York City against Zohran Mamdani. But it is also possible that El-Sayed can Mamdani his way out of it.<\/p>\n<p><em>William Liang is a writer living in San Francisco. He volunteers for Connie Chan\u2019s congressional campaign in California\u2019s 11th District.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, Michigan\u2019s Democrats served up a string of victories for the left. Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s narrow triumph in the Senate primary may even have raised President Donald Trump hopes about his chances of keeping the chamber. But my favorite subplot of Michigan\u2019s primary night, and surely the result that most surprised Trump, came in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/AP26208745611383.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}