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Progressive Abdul El-Sayed immediately zeroed in on his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, by calling the former House lawmaker a carpetbagger and “corporate sellout” after clinching the Democratic primary nod in the Michigan Senate race.
“Mike’s a guy who spent 14 years in Congress with one goal: to figure out how to cash out the day he left,” El-Sayed told supporters Wednesday in his first remarks following the election. “And guess what he did? As soon as he left Congress, after having taken corporate check after corporate check after corporate check to empower the corporations to pick your pockets, he went and he cashed out.”
“Mike, if you want to be a Florida man, go be a Florida man,” the former Wayne County health director said, taking aim at Rogers for moving to the Sunshine State after leaving the House.
El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic primary for retiring Sen. Gary Peters’s (D-Mich.) seat on Wednesday, defeating center-left Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in a hard-fought contest.
The progressive defeated Haley by about 1 percentage point, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), with more than 95 percent of the vote reported as of Wednesday afternoon.
Democrats quickly coalesced around El-Sayed, keenly aware that a divided primary electorate could squander their chances to keep the battleground seat in November. Stevens congratulated El-Sayed in a statement and endorsed him in the race.
El-Sayed’s victory is welcome news for Republicans, who see him as the weaker candidate heading into the November election. Some Democrats also expressed anxiety around El-Sayed’s candidacy, worrying he could imperil other candidates downballot.
“Great news for the Republican Party. El-Sayed, a Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in this race with the Socialist,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.
Polling heading into the primary suggested that El-Sayed would trounce Stevens in the Democratic primary but fare less strongly against Rogers in a hypothetical matchup. Some of that polling, however, showed both El-Sayed and Stevens statistically tied against Rogers.
Rogers in a statement characterized the race as a choice between “common sense or complete insanity,” calling the former county health official an “extremist” who was “leading a movement grounded in ideological fanaticism.”
The GOP candidate attacked El-Sayed over crime and public safety, the Muslim Brotherhood and taxes as well as his ties with far-left stream Hasan Piker, who suggested the U.S. “deserved” the terrorist attacks that took place on 9/11.
The Hill has reached out to Rogers’s campaign for comment regarding El-Sayed’s speech.
Democrats, however, have largely signaled support for El-Sayed. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D) quickly endorsed the nominee after initially backing Stevens.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D), who dropped out of the Senate Democratic primary in July, endorsed El-Sayed before DDHQ and other outlets projected the race Wednesday, even introducing the nominee Wednesday and urging Democrats to come together after the divisive primary.
“I can promise you that today, Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are looking at Michigan, and they are hoping that these family fights that we had, the disagreements within the Democratic Party are the fights that we’re going to retain through November,” she said.
The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and the super PAC aligned with Senate Democratic leadership both issued statements signaling they would be getting behind El-Sayed in the primary, too.
The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, meanwhile, launched a new ad on Wednesday, stating El-Sayed’s full name — Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed — and calling him “the most radical Senate candidate in America.”
“Mike, listen, man, if you can’t say the name is Abdulrahman — keep the name out your damn mouth,” El-Sayed said during his presser. “I’ll be happy to give you lessons.”
One key voting bloc El-Sayed will have to work to mend fences with with Jewish voters.
El-Sayed was asked Wednesday about comments from earlier this year in which he said that “hurt people, hurt people” while condemning a deadly attack at a West Bloomfield synagogue.
“What I mean is that hurt people, hurt people. That maybe if we’re serious about ending the hurt, we should stop hurting people,” El-Sayed said. “That’s what I mean. I condemn the attack. It was a vile anti-Semitic attack.”
“As I said, my commitment to Jewish safety is the same as I’ve got a commitment to my own kids, and that’s the highest commitment I can offer as a father,” he added later.
El-Sayed has been critical of Israel’s government and called the country’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.” He has also opposed to unconditional aid to Israel.
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