With 99% of votes counted in the Democratic primary for Michigan Senate, the Associated Press called the race for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is anti-Israel, who beat Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who has drawn support from AIPAC.
Some 15,000 votes separate the two, with El-Sayed recording 740,950 votes (48.5%), just ahead of 726,057 (47.5%) for Stevens.
Mallory McMorrow had 61,250 (4%), many more votes than the margin between the other two.
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, stated on Wednesday that Democrats had nominated El-Sayed.
“Abdul El-Sayed is a direct threat to Michigan’s Jewish community,” Brooks said. “El-Sayed has called the government of the Jewish state as ‘evil’ as Hamas, ‘struggled’ to say that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and empathized with a terrorist who tried to murder Jewish schoolchildren at Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs and yet Michigan Democrats just picked him as their nominee for the United States Senate.”
“Michigan’s Jewish community does not need this explained to them. They lived it. They watched the smoke rise over Walnut Lake Road in March. Then they watched Abdul El-Sayed reach for a microphone and offer his rationale for why the attack happened: not to blame the terrorist but to place the blame 6,000 miles away and the burden on the Jews of West Bloomfield,” the RJC leader stated. “Their own rabbi called it what it was: offensive. El-Sayed later told his own supporters that saying it was a ‘risk.’ It wasn’t a risk, but it was a clear revelation.”
The RJC referred to El-Sayed as “the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America.”
El-Sayed’s “campaign’s primary organizing principle is that a pro-Israel Jewish American advocacy group is a hidden hand behind everything wrong in Michigan—an argument so ugly that Haley Stevens herself called it blatant antisemitism.”
“There is nothing complicated about the choice this November,” Brooks stated. “Mike Rogers is a distinguished Army veteran and former FBI special agent, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee. He spent fourteen years in Congress as one of the most reliable pro-America, pro-Israel voices in the House, and he has been unflinching about confronting antisemitism wherever it appears.”
“To our friends in Michigan’s Jewish community, including the tens of thousands who have voted Democrat their entire adult lives and now find themselves politically homeless: this is the moment for real change and action,” he said. “There are more than 100,000 Jewish voters in the Wolverine State. We are not a rounding error; we are the decisive margin. Mike Rogers has earned your vote.”
Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, stated that El-Sayed’s victory “should raise alarm bells for Jewish Americans across the country and everyone who believes in civil rights for all.”
“Spewing conspiracy theories that blame Jews, or ‘Israel’ as the collective Jew, for society’s misfortune is not only antisemitic. It’s bad leadership. It’s a tactic designed to deflect attention from genuine problems plaguing society,” Lewin stated. “When leaders refuse to recognize that Jews are defined by more than faith, when they deny Jewish peoplehood and the Jews’ ancient history rooted in the land of Israel, that fuels antisemitism and jeopardizes civil rights protections for Jews in America.”
“Hatred that targets Jews on the basis of their connection to Israel is not a political debate. It is antisemitism, full stop,” she added. “We’ve seen in New York City what happens when rhetoric targeting Jews is legitimized—hate crimes against Jews rise. We must be vigilant to ensure this pattern does not repeat itself, gain acceptance and become normalized on Capitol Hill.”
The Jewish Federation of Detroit stated that as a nonprofit, it does not endorse or oppose candidates. “We believe deeply in the power of democratic participation and encourage each member of our community to take seriously their responsibility to learn about the candidates and their positions and to vote in November,” it said.
“We will continue to engage across the political spectrum to advocate for issues essential to our future, including standing against antisemitism, violence and bigotry, ensuring the safety and security of the Jewish community and houses of worship and championing Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” it added.
