Abdul El-Sayed is very confident that he will win the Michigan Senate race, and handily so. At least that is what he keeps telling other Democrats and the media, even though the polls show the race is tight.
Yet even a cocky El-Sayed has come to understand that Hasan Piker is political poison in a general election. He wants Piker to shut up, or at least temper his rhetoric until El-Sayed can bring their shared radical ideology to the US Capitol.
“El-Sayed recently called Piker and warned his rhetoric was costing El-Sayed votes, asking him to stop” https://t.co/YGNvVM5ORz
— Bill Scher (@billscher) October 7, 2026
Michigan Democrat insiders are clearly not thrilled to have El-Sayed at the top of the ticket. They worked hard to prevent his selection in the primary, and while they are now all-in on getting him across the finish line, the grumbling about El-Sayed comes through loud and clear in this CNN profile of the campaign.
El-Sayed has captured national attention with his appeals to enact Medicare for All and target money in politics. His criticisms of Israel are in line with an increasingly anti-Israel party base. On Monday, he was in New York City for a fundraiser with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hours after announcing Barack Obama would campaign with him in Michigan later in October.
“I’m not the Democrat the Democrats want, but I am the Democrat that Democrats have. And I am decidedly not a Republican. But this is what I’ll tell you: I am a Democrat that Michiganders want,” El-Sayed told CNN outside the food truck.
I love that framing by CNN. El-Sayed hasn't captured national attention because he says what literally EVERY OTHER DEMOCRAT says about Medicare for All or getting money out of politics; he captured it by being an openly antisemitic Islamist who embraces extremists like Hasan Piker.
Which is why the politicos are so worried and are calling in the big guns to save El-Sayed's a**. They see polls that say El-Sayed is ahead, but they also see polls showing that the most determined voters — the ones who say they are certain to vote — favor Mike Rogers. If the vote-harvesting machine works as intended, El-Sayed should scrape by, but they are nervous because El-Sayed is not the generic Democrat who could win in a walk this year.
El-Sayed says he’s been pressured to modulate his positions since he beat the more moderate Stevens in the August primary, though he insists he will not. But he talks less about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent $33 million through its super PAC trying to defeat him, and sticks more to frustration over high prices for ground beef, gas and healthcare.
El-Sayed has quietly made one concession: He distanced himself from Hasan Piker after campaigning through the end of the primary with the streamer, who’s said that Jews who keep supporting Israel should worry about their safety and that America is “pound for pound” worse than Al-Qaeda. El-Sayed recently called Piker and warned his rhetoric was costing El-Sayed votes, asking him to stop, according to two people El-Sayed told about the conversation. Piker did not respond to requests for comment.
El-Sayed's biggest vulnerability is the same strength that helped him (barely) win the primary: despite all his protestations, he is clearly antisemitic. His anti-Israel rhetoric excites the Muslim and radical left base of the party, but it puts off more establishment Democrats and the Jewish voters, who also form part of the Democrat base.
The Detroit News: Dana Nessel urges Jewish Dems to place world's needs above self interest Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel suggested in a private speech to Jewish Democrats on August 30 that they should sacrifice their own safety and comfort in exchange for what she described as "the opportunity to save the rest of humanity." https://t.co/qG7QgahUJG
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) August 31, 2026
The Detroit News: Dana Nessel urges Jewish Dems to place world's needs above self interest
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel suggested in a private speech to Jewish Democrats on August 30 that they should sacrifice their own safety and comfort in exchange for what she described as "the opportunity to save the rest of humanity."
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel embodies the tension. She is Jewish, opposed El-Sayed, and was so frightened by the growing antisemitism in her party that she skipped the Democrat Party convention in her state. Yet she still votes for El-Sayed.
El-Sayed apologized after the primary for saying that “hurt people hurt people” after the antisemitic attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. He has won the support of some prominent Jewish leaders like state Attorney General Dana Nessel.
“It’s not the choice we wanted. But it’s the choice in front of us,” Nessel told CNN this week.
Nessel knows her argument — that from the environment to civil rights to public health to ICE raids, there are many major issues she wants a senator who would be a check on Trump — has been so controversial that she didn’t attend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services last month to avoid confrontations.
She also skipped the state Democratic convention after the primary because she was concerned about her own safety. Nessel was booed the previous year following her decision to charge pro-Palestinian protesters who participated in an encampment at the University of Michigan, cases she later dismissed.
“There’s all these other things that make me feel unsafe, not just as a Jew, but as an American, as a human,” Nessel told CNN. “The one thing I can say about Abdul I know for sure is that he’s going to stand up to Donald Trump every single time,” she said.
Nessel reached out to El-Sayed as soon as the primary finished, and she said to his credit, he has largely stopped attacking AIPAC, as she urged him to do. She is disturbed by what having him in the Senate may mean for support for Israel and would have liked him to do more outreach, both substantive and symbolic, but that’s not enough to make her consider Rogers.
It's an irony that Jews are often seen as being too tribal, given that the only reason Nessel will vote for El-Sayed, despite him and his supporters making her feel physically unsafe, is a tribal loyalty to the Democrat Party.
"Sure, he and his supporters may lead to my community's destruction, but he also hates Donald Trump" is the kind of thinking that makes you shake your head.
In a less polarized election year, you would expect that El-Sayed would be a dead man walking, politically speaking. But as 2025's election showed, Democrat voters are willing to overlook even openly murderous impulses in a candidate (Jay Jones) as long as he hates Donald Trump as much as they do.
Predicting the outcome based on polls is a fool's errand. El-Sayed was supposed to win the primary in a walk, yet he barely scraped through. Pollsters are now openly saying that Republicans don't want to talk with them. And polls are just, in general, getting more unreliable. Their turnout models suck, and it's impossible to get a random sample.
But one thing we do know is that the voting has already begun, and Democrats are superb at getting out the early vote. So El-Sayed will walk into election day with a secure lead that Mike Rogers will have to make up with election day voters.
Pray that he does.
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