STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. — With just days left in Michigan’s Senate race, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is being tripped up by his primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens.
Mr. El-Sayed said Saturday he’s worried the simmering Democratic feud over his anti-Israel stance will crowd out his closing pitch to voters.
The timing is awkward. On Sunday, he’s set to appear with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn at a Detroit church, part of a final push to rally Black voters, a crucial constituency in his race against Republian Mike Rogers. Mr. Clyburn also invited Ms. Stevens, and that invitation is still open.
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Asked whether he wanted her to join him, Mr. El-Sayed didn’t say yes.
“I’ve been very clear that I would rather not distract from the key issues of this campaign, and those are getting money out of politics, money in your pocket and Medicare for All,” Mr. El-Sayed told reporters after a campaign rally in Sterling Heights. “I don’t want a distraction.”
“It seems as though other folks are more interested in making this race about things that it’s not about,” he said. “So we’re really focused on talking about Trump’s agenda, why Mike Rogers seems to want to be a rubber stamp for it.”
Mr. Rogers and Mr. El-Sayed are locked in a competitive race. Democrats need to defend the seat, and flip four more to take control of the upper chamber.
But Ms. Stevens has renewed her criticism of how Mr. El-Sayed handled a sharply anti-Israel online ad from Rebellion PAC, a group led by liberal commentator Cenk Uygur.
The fight spilled back into public view Friday, when Ms. Stevens announced she would attend the Detroit church event. In that same statement, she argued Mr. El-Sayed has not fully accounted for past comments about Israel and the war in Gaza, which they fought over in the Democratic primary, where AIPAC and its affiliated super PAC, the United Democracy Project, spent more than $30 million on behalf of Ms. Stevens.
The renewed clash comes as Mr. Rogers is looking to capitalize on Democratic divisions over Israel.
Earlier this week, Jason Turkish, a Jewish attorney who describes himself as a lifelong Democrat and is engaged to Ms. Stevens, joined Mr. Rogers at a campaign event to announce his support for the Republican.
Ms. Stevens said she agreed to attend the church event with Mr. Clyburne only after learning Mr. El-Sayed had condemned the ad, which features grocery shoppers criticizing billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Israel and claiming taxpayer dollars are being used to “kill Palestinians.”
But she said the ad echoed arguments Mr. El-Sayed has made throughout the campaign.
“If those words are wrong when a Political Action Committee supporting his campaign says them, then they are equally wrong when Abdul says them, and Abdul has said them from the start,” she said. “I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well.”
Mr. El-Sayed said Saturday that neither he nor his campaign had anything to do with the ad and that he disagreed with its message. He also made clear he was not interested in relitigating the primary that he won.
“We had a hard-fought primary. That primary ended in August. I’m focused now on beating Mike Rogers,” Mr. El-Sayed said. “I hope that everybody who is worried about the state of our democracy, worried about the ability to afford gas and groceries, worried about ending illegal wars or ending tariff wars, is with me in that fight.”
“That’s what I’m going to be focused on,” he said. “These other things are less concerning.”
The back-and-forth has revived one of the sharpest fault lines from the primary, when disagreements over Israel and the war in Gaza often overshadowed other issues and exposed cracks in the Democratic Party’s base.
For Mr. El-Sayed, the timing couldn’t be much worse. He’s spending the campaign’s final weekend focused on turnout and outreach to Black voters, whom Democrats view as critical to holding the seat.
Mr. Rogers, for his part, is enjoying the show.
Campaigning Saturday alongside Sen. John Barrasso at the Livingston County GOP headquarters in Whitmore Lake, the Republican nominee pointed to the clash as proof that Mr. El-Sayed represents what he called an “angry and divisive” style of politics.
“It has gotten really nasty within the last 24 hours,” Mr. Rogers said.
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