With a number of recent polls finding former public health official Abdul El-Sayed with a strong lead against Rep. Haley Stevens in the Michigan US Senate race, establishment Democrats are resorting this week to attacks that some critics said amounted to racism.
The latest survey, out Thursday from the highly respected, non-partisan Emerson College Polling along with WLNS/WOODTV, found El-Sayed with 54% support, while Stevens had 39%.
Six percent of respondents said they were undecided about the primary election, in which Michigan voters will go to the polls on August 4, and 2% said they backed state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8), who suspended her campaign earlier this summer.
El-Sayed had the support of voters under 50 by 42 percentage points, as well as voters age 50-60 by 12 points.
The poll came on the heels of another survey by Tavern Research, which found El-Sayed—who has built his campaign around the pledge, “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All”—leading Stevens by 11 points.
Outside groups’ spending on behalf of Stevens, including roughly $60 million in funding from a super political action committee affiliated with the increasingly unpopular American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has become a major topic of discussion in the race, with El-Sayed arguing that his opponent’s reliance on such outsized spending is proof that she is far less “electable” than her supporters in the Democratic establishment have argued.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that billionaires are clearly “panicked” by the possibility of a Democratic Senate candidate whose victory would “make it clearer than ever that the American people are sick and tired of the same-old, same-old establishment politics and policies.”
Even with money pouring into Michigan to back Stevens, who has praised US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and said she would not support any conditions on military aid to Israel—further distancing herself from Democratic voters’ views—the congresswoman’s supporters have resorted to attacks on El-Sayed, with Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) recently making numerous media appearances to portray him—without evidence—as “sexist” and “un-American.”
Scholten told Semafor Thursday that El-Sayed “has allowed distinctly anti-American sentiment to enter our public dialogue”—an apparent reference to his earlier campaigning with commentator Hasan Piker, an outspoken critic of Israel who once said the US “deserved” the September 11 attacks, a remark he later clarified and apologized for.
Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97) said Scholten’s vague comment ignored El-Sayed’s own clear statements about his love for and belief in the potential of the United States.
“She’s just racist,” Romman said of the remark. “All people have to do is listen to Abdul speak for barely a few minutes, and they’ll hear a deep love for our country.”
The United Democracy Project, the super PAC tied to AIPAC, has also attacked El-Sayed for his association with Piker and baselessly claimed in one commercial that the candidate “expressed sympathy for a terrorist." Scholten’s comment also echoed the campaign of Republican candidate Mike Rogers, a former US House member who said in a call with supporters, “I don’t think he likes America, candidly.”
AIPAC-funded ads have also claimed El-Sayed’s rhetoric is “uniquely sexist.”
The commentary from both Democrats and Republicans are “reproducing tropes that have just been around for centuries” about Muslims, Nancy Khalil, an anthropologist at University of Michigan, told The Intercept this week, referring to stereotypes painting Arab and Muslim men as “controlling of women.”
“We’re seeing it come from within his own party," said Khalil.
Dr. Adam Hamawy, a surgeon who won the Democratic primary race in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in June after also campaigning on Medicare for All and other popular progressive policies, told The Intercept that he faced similar attacks.
"They’re questioning his loyalty, they are not talking about issues,” Hamawy said. “And that was the same thing here as well: They didn’t attack me on issues, they attacked me for who I was.”
While making negative claims about El-Sayed’s character, some in the Democratic establishment have refused to say they would vote for the Medicare for All advocate in the general election if he wins the primary. Scholten refused to commit to backing him in an interview with CNN last week, while Michael LaRosa, the former press secretary for First Lady Jill Biden during the Biden administration, said Wednesday that he would “do everything I can to make sure he loses” the general election, due to comments El-Sayed made about supporting primary challenges of Democrats including Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
Sanders said Wednesday on CNN that he was committed to supporting whichever candidate wins the primary, in the interest of securing a Democratic Senate seat in the crucial election.
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