Nabeela Syed, a 27-year-old Democrat whose parents emigrated from Hyderabad to the United States in the 1980s, has defeated Republican incumbent Darby Hills to win a seat in the Illinois State Senate. The result came in the midterm elections on November 3, according to Maktoob Media.
Syed contested from the 26th Senate District in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, which takes in towns such as Palatine, Schaumburg, Barrington and Libertyville. The race was among the most expensive legislative contests in Illinois, with candidates drawing $6.5 million in contributions. Her campaign focused on affordability, healthcare and the growing number of data centres.
Speaking to supporters after the win, Syed said that “You don’t see young women of colour… flipping Republican-held seats.” An elderly woman in the crowd wiped away tears as she spoke.
A first win at 23
Syed was born and raised in Palatine, Illinois. She first stood for office in 2022, at 23, when she won the 51st District seat in the Illinois House of Representatives by defeating Republican candidate Chris Bos. That made her the youngest lawmaker in the state. She retained the seat in 2024 before moving to the Senate contest.
When she won in 2022, her grandmother was moved to see so many people in a predominantly white district vote for “someone that looks like me”, Syed said. She told NBC News at the time that her parents had made sacrifices so she could live in the US, and that her mother had told her: “if I didn’t do it, who would?”
The 2016 turning point
Syed had no political ambitions until Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. His win made her feel that she no longer belonged in the place where she was born, she has said. She described it as a response to what she saw as divisive rhetoric from a candidate who became President.
She began by managing campaigns for progressive candidates in school board elections, where far-right candidates were also standing, and those candidates won. She later graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a double major in political science and business administration, and began promoting interfaith dialogue and leadership among young Muslim women at the Islamic Society of Northwest Suburbs, according to Maktoob.
Syed decided to wear the hijab in Class 9. Her father worried she might be bullied, but she has called the decision one of the defining moments in building her own agency. In 2017, she was crowned prom queen at her school.
‘Hijab is a choice’
In an interview with Maktoob in December 2022, Syed spoke about growing up as a Muslim in the US. She was two years old at the time of the September 11 attacks, and said she grew up in a world where some people responded with bigotry and generalised all Muslims as terrorists. She recalled being called a terrorist, sometimes jokingly and sometimes seriously, and said it hurt. She also recalled that someone had tried to spit on her during an internship in Washington. She said she was not sure whether the man wore a Trump hat.
Asked about the hijab ban in France and the controversy over the hijab in India, she said the choice should belong to women. “Hijab is a choice,” she told the outlet, and it should not be taken away. Asked about religious freedom in India, she declined to comment, saying she did not want to speak about things she did not know well. She said the last time she visited Hyderabad she was about 12 years old.
A record built on healthcare costs
Syed’s campaign website lists her legislative record in the House, and Karvaan India has not independently verified these claims. It says she passed laws to cap prescription drug costs, expand breast cancer screening and secure paid leave for organ donors. She was chief sponsor of the Generic Drug Pricing Fairness Act, which the site says makes Illinois one of the first states to ban price gouging on generic drugs. It also credits her with a measure removing prior authorisation for outpatient mental health and substance use treatment, and with funding for early childhood education and K-12 schools.
For the Senate, she pledged to continue work on capping out-of-pocket drug costs and protecting reproductive rights. The website says she “believes that healthcare is a fundamental human right”.
What it means
Syed’s win is a local result in an American state. It also adds to a growing list of Indian-origin and Muslim candidates who have won office in the US, and her own account of growing up under suspicion explains why that matters to many in her community. Her next test will be what she can pass in a Senate where she is still among the youngest members.
