James Matthews: Abdul El-Sayed's response to me felt like a misstep after stressful contest

All news is local now. I suppose that's one lesson from my encounter with Abdul El-Sayed.

As viral videos go, it's found its audience - eight million and counting, last time I checked.

More, certainly, than his measure of Sky News: "Like, five people watch it…"

America's story belongs to all of us and the newly-minted senator-elect for Michigan is a main character in it.

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The rest of the world is hard-wired into the consequences of his elevation to Congress and the power he'll exercise.

El-Sayed wants to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It shapes US foreign policy and there are few corners of the world untouched by its influence.

The responsibilities of America's legislators extend far beyond the borders of the United States.

At any given time, what this country does next has global consequences.

As such, we are entitled to ask questions of a man whose decisions will affect us all.

In any country, it can be difficult gaining access to local politicians. It's true to say there are no votes in foreign media and so party handlers tend to restrict access. The UK, incidentally, is no different.

So it has been a challenge for Sky News to reach El-Sayed. Imagine our surprise, then, when we were filming outside a Detroit polling centre and he turned up unannounced.

As hard as we'd tried to find him, he eventually found us. Not that he was too pleased.

I didn't have the chance to ask him any questions before he began to quiz me. Why should he speak to a UK outlet, he asked, when there were no votes in it?

He wasn't saying anything that he and his team wouldn't have discussed privately. It's political strategy 101 - always be targeting the local audience.

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But what ensued, in public, wasn't pretty. For a politician typically sure-footed in his dealings with the media, it felt like a misstep.

It has been a stressful contest in Michigan and all participants can be forgiven for having had their eyes on the prize.

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The targeting of Abdul El-Sayed, from Donald Trump down, has debased the political process. Islamophobia is a fixture, now, in US politics in a way it never was until recently.

In the wake of the mid-terms, there's much talk about a new way of doing politics, of rinsing it clean from the toxicity that now comes as standard.

With El-Sayed's electoral success comes a duty to engage. With the pressure off, perhaps that can involve the international audience, too. It is invested, after all.

(c) Sky News 2026: James Matthews: Abdul El-Sayed's response to me felt like a misstep after stressful contest