New National Directory Tracks Record Number of Muslim Officeholders, With Arab Americans at the Forefront

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its advocacy affiliate CAIR Action released the 2026 Directory of Elected Muslim Officials on Wednesday, a national accounting of Muslim Americans serving in public office that includes a large share of Arab American names among its ranks. According to figures circulated ahead of the release by muslims.vote, a voter engagement platform tracking the directory's rollout, the 2026 edition documents 232 Muslim officeholders across 26 states serving on school boards, city councils, state legislatures, judicial benches and in federal office. A separate media tracker, Newsroom America, reported the figure as 228 officials across the same 26 states in advance coverage of the release — a small discrepancy typical of last-minute updates to a rolling count, but consistent on the broader scope and timing of the announcement. The directory is an outgrowth of tracking CAIR and its partners have done since 2016, and it has grown substantially each cycle. An earlier edition, the 2023 directory compiled with the Justice Education Technology Policy Action Center (JETPAC), counted 235 elected Muslim officials nationwide — up nearly 20 percent from 189 the year before — with Michigan and New Jersey consistently ranking among the top two states for representation. Michigan's numbers have long been driven in large part by its concentrated Arab American population in and around Dearborn and Hamtramck. That pattern held through the 2025 election cycle. CAIR and CAIR Action's post-election tracking from last November credited Arab American candidates with a wave of local wins across Michigan, including Abdullah Hammoud's reelection as mayor of Dearborn, Mo Baydoun's win as mayor of Dearborn Heights, and city council victories for Kamal Alsawafy and Mustapha Hammoud in Dearborn and for Hassan Ahmad in Dearborn Heights (Ahmad has since moved on to the Wayne County Commission). Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, of Palestinian descent, remains among the most prominent Arab Americans in federal office nationally. The timing of this year's directory follows a summer of high-profile political moments for Arab and Muslim Americans, most notably Dr. Abdul El-Sayed's victory in Michigan's Democratic U.S. Senate primary in early August — a race that, if he wins the general election, would make him the first Egyptian American and first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. CAIR officials have said the directory is meant to serve as a resource documenting the breadth of Muslim civic participation beyond any single high-profile race, spanning smaller offices like school boards and municipal courts that rarely draw national attention but shape day-to-day community life. CAIR has periodically had to weigh how much of the directory to make public. In 2023, the organization delayed releasing full names of some officials, citing a spike in threats and harassment against Muslim public servants tied to the war in Gaza, opting instead for an abridged version with aggregate statistics. Advocates say that tension — wanting to showcase representation while protecting officials from targeted harassment — remains part of how the directory is compiled and released each year. For Arab American communities specifically, the directory functions as an informal scorecard of political progress in a period marked by both expanding representation and continued scrutiny of Arab and Muslim candidates in the media and in campaign attacks. Community organizers in Michigan and New Jersey — the two states that have alternated at the top of the rankings since the directory began — say the growing numbers reflect years of local organizing work, from school board campaigns to county commission seats, that often goes unnoticed outside the communities themselves. CAIR says it will continue updating the directory as more officials are identified and as election results are certified, and it has invited candidates and community members to submit corrections or additions directly to the organization.