Is Abdul El-Sayed's Campaign Imploding?

Two days before Election Day, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's Senate campaign looks like it's imploding.

That's a stunning development, because campaigns are typically heavily controlled operations. "Every word. Every image. Every debate quip," Spencer Pratt noted last month. "Everything, down to the color of the font you choose, is calculated to invoke a specific feeling, and most of the time, it's easy to decipher what the campaign is trying to convey with these choices, and that is the goal."

Pratt added, “You don't get to choose everything that happens in the campaign, but you do THINK about everything that happens in a campaign and choose your strategy for presenting it to the public or spinning it.”

What's happening with El-Sayed's campaign right now defies every bit of that. A Sunday unity event meant to make peace between El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), the rival he narrowly beat in a bitter August primary, has collapsed into a public feud on the eve of the election. The cause? El-Sayed won't denounce a blatantly antisemitic ad.

The New York Times laid out the mess on Saturday.

Ms. Stevens and Dr. [sic] El-Sayed, who have been publicly quarreling for days about Israel, were initially expected to attend the Sunday event together, part of an effort by Representatives Debbie Dingell of Michigan and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to broker a peace between the two Democrats days before a critical election.

It was unclear if Ms. Stevens, who lost to Dr. [sic] El-Sayed by less than a percentage point in a bitter August primary, would abide by his request that she stay away from the event.

But by Saturday night, it appeared that the late-hour push by Democratic leaders to bridge the rift between Dr. [sic] El-Sayed, a progressive, and Ms. Stevens, a moderate, may have badly backfired.

Democrats in Michigan were left to confront how little they had to show for a three-month push to coalesce after one of the state's most bruising primary races in memory. And Democrats across the country were anxiously wondering if the bickering between Dr. [sic] El-Sayed and Ms. Stevens might sink his chances in a race that could determine control of the Senate.

When the Times starts openly fretting that Democrats could lose the Senate over a temper tantrum, you know things have gotten ugly. Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) organized Sunday's event specifically to bring the two camps together.

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Stevens set one condition for showing up on Sunday. El-Sayed had to denounce a viral ad from Rebellion PAC that shows a couple who can't afford groceries because of Israel. El-Sayed's campaign didn't make the ad, but prominent Democrats haven’t stopped calling on him to condemn it.

And yet he’s refused.

Speaking to reporters after a rally in Sterling Heights, outside Detroit, El-Sayed made his feelings about Stevens' attendance clear. "I don't want any distractions," he said.

Pressed about the ad and his fight with Stevens, El-Sayed dug in deeper. "It seems as though other folks are more interested in making this race about things that it's not about," he insisted.

Sorry, but an ad blaming Jews for grocery prices isn't a distraction. It's the whole story.

Even Clyburn's camp isn't playing along. Clyburn said Saturday he had "no idea" whether Stevens would show up, and his adviser Antjuan Seawright made it plain who was running the show. "This is not Abdul's event. ... The invitation still stands," Seawright said.

A party that can't get its own Senate nominee to condemn open Jew-hatred has a much bigger problem than one disastrous weekend in Michigan. But this stuff shouldn’t be happening this close to the election. It feels like an implosion.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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