Abdul El-Sayed is trying to smooth things over with Jewish Democrats in Michigan, but the effort is colliding with old comments, new backlash, and a loud fight over Hasan Piker’s role in his campaign. The dispute has turned into a test of how far a Democratic nominee can reach for unity while refusing to fully cut ties with a controversial online ally.
Over the weekend, El-Sayed made the rounds with Michigan’s Jewish Democrats and publicly apologized for remarks he made after the March attack on a suburban Detroit synagogue. He told Fox News Digital, “To anybody who feels like my comments may have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention. We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright,” adding that he was trying to explain the context without dismissing anyone’s pain.
That apology did not settle much. His Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, blasted it as a weak attempt to clean up the fallout, while also accusing El-Sayed of fueling a toxic atmosphere around antisemitism. Rogers has leaned hard into the issue as he courts Jewish voters who are uneasy about the direction of the Democratic primary winner.
The original controversy came after a gunman attacked a synagogue in Michigan. El-Sayed responded with, “Hurt people, hurt people,” a line that drew sharp criticism from members of his own party, including Michigan Secretary of State Dana Nessel. Nessel has said the party is not doing enough to confront antisemitism, and she skipped the convention in part because of those concerns.
El-Sayed, a physician and former Wayne County Health Department director, is now running in a state that could decide control of the Senate. If elected, he would become the nation’s first Muslim senator, and he has made no secret of his opposition to unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel. He also continues to dodge a straight answer on whether Israel has the right to exist, which keeps the pressure on as he tries to reassure nervous voters.
At the same time, El-Sayed is not backing away from his broader message to Jewish Democrats in Michigan. He says foreign policy differences should not erase his commitment to safety and dignity for Jewish families, even while he stays aligned with Palestinian self-determination. That balancing act may sound measured on paper, but in a political year full of sharp edges, it is landing with a thud for some party loyalists.
Before the questions started flying, El-Sayed met with the state’s Democratic Jewish Caucus in Lansing. One delegate, Daniel Rivkin, described the session as productive and said, “He just had a very good meeting with us. We’re having real conversations.”
Still, the mood around him is anything but settled. Jewish leaders in Michigan circulated an open letter urging Jewish Democrats and independents to back Rogers, arguing that they feel threatened and pushed aside by the politics around El-Sayed and his allies. Rogers quickly seized on that letter, saying El-Sayed “fans the flames of antisemitism. We’re fighting to extinguish it.”
The Hasan Piker piece keeps making everything messier. Piker backed El-Sayed during the primary and appeared at campaign events, but he has also become a lightning rod for his own long trail of incendiary remarks about Israel, Jews, capitalism, and America. El-Sayed has tried to distance himself, saying, “I want to be crystal clear, nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.”
When reporters pressed him again, he waved off the obsession with the streamer. “We’re in the state of Michigan. If you want to make this race about a streamer in California, I just think you’re missing the boat,” he said. He redirected attention to affordability, health care, and Donald Trump’s policies, but the topic refused to go away.
Rogers has made sure of that. On Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” he said many Jewish Democrats in Michigan had reached out because they are done with El-Sayed, and he added, “When someone says you might have been offended by what I said, that’s not an apology.”
The broader Democratic rift is still hanging over all of it. Some party insiders keep talking about a “big tent,” while critics argue the left is dragging the party too far from the center and too far from ordinary voters who want less drama and more stability. As that fight keeps boiling, El-Sayed is trying to keep one foot in a diverse coalition and the other planted firmly in a campaign that still needs Jewish support to win in Michigan.
