Why many Jewish Michiganders are torn over Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate candidacy

Many Jewish voters in Michigan who have backed Democrats for decades are agonizing over how to vote in November, according to MS NOW. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, and the Jewish community's unease about El-Sayed could complicate a party that wants control of the Senate. In the August primary, heavily Jewish districts mostly favored Rep. Haley Stevens.

Their objections are twofold. First, they say his anti-Zionist politics crosses into antisemitism: he has declined to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, has invoked tropes about Jews controlling American government, and has campaigned alongside the streamer Hasan Piker. He also hammered AIPAC during the primary and suggested Stevens put a foreign country ahead of Americans. Second, after the March 12 attack on Temple Israel near Detroit, which the FBI described as Hezbollah-inspired, he said "hurt people, hurt people" and later voiced regret.

Gilda Jacobs, who leads the Michigan League for Public Policy, says she cannot back Rogers yet finds El-Sayed frightening. Elise Otis, a Temple Israel teacher who hid with children during the assault, has decided to vote for Rogers, though unhappily. Regent Jordan Acker describes similar worries.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →