Well, he's running for US Senate (100 Senators total), which a much more powerful office than US Representative (435 Representatives total). Democrats have a pretty good chance of gaining majority in the US house of Representatives, but they'll do well to pull even in the Senate (currently at +3 to Republicans I think). So, the Democrat candidates running for Senate have a chance of making a much bigger impact to the balance of power (James Talarico in Texas is also an example of this). The fact that Abdul El-Sayed is 1) a (extremely handsome...) Muslim man, and 2) from the left progressive end of the party is making waves.