Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is facing fresh scrutiny over his relationship with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker after giving a cautious answer about the alliance in an interview with the New York Times, as some Jewish voters raise concerns about his Senate campaign.
El-Sayed, 41, narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Tuesday night’s Senate primary, winning by fewer than 15,000 votes out of more than 1.5 million ballots cast.
The close result followed polling that had shown El-Sayed ahead by double digits just a week before voters went to the polls.
Piker, a prominent leftist commentator who became one of El-Sayed’s most visible campaign supporters, has drawn backlash for inflammatory anti-American and anti-Israel remarks, including saying the US “deserved 9/11” and claiming it “doesn’t matter” whether rapes occurred during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.
Asked by the Times whether he would keep Piker on as a surrogate in the November general election, El-Sayed did not distance himself from the streamer. “Look, I’m just a lot more focused on who I’m campaigning to,” he said.
El-Sayed has also faced criticism for his own past remarks, including a video message released one day after a March 12 terror attack in which a man drove a pickup truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township while the building was filled with schoolchildren.
In that video, El-Sayed noted that the attacker had lost family members in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon and said “violence always begets violence,” a comment some Jewish critics viewed as a coded attempt to rationalize the attack.
Those remarks, combined with El-Sayed’s ties to Piker, have intensified anxiety among some Michigan Jews, who worry about whether his rhetoric could endanger their community if he is elected.
“It is just a scary time right now,” Joe Tigay, 44, a father of three young children, told the Detroit Free Press.
Tigay, who said he voted twice for former President Barack Obama, said he was more likely to support Republican nominee Mike Rogers unless El-Sayed extended an olive branch to the Jewish community.
“If he says Israel has a right to exist, that would be great,” he said.
Rabbi Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek shared a similar sentiment, saying the fear in the community about El-Sayed’s ascent is the result of his choosing to “falsely justify an act of terrorism,” referring to the Temple Israel attack.
He also specifically called out Piker’s prominent position in his campaign as another red flag.
“If a right-wing politician were to platform a member of the Ku Klux Klan, we would be outraged,” he told the outlet.
“In the same way, when Dr. El-Sayed platforms Hasan Piker, we are outraged.”
